


Across The Borders Of Time

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Series: Crossing The Borders [1]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Community: scifibigbang, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-15
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

_...in retrospect, I wonder if there could have been any other way to stop the chain of events that started when Helen killed Cutter. Or maybe I should think further back to when she caused Stephen's death. Was there anything that we could have done back then? Was there anything we should have done differently? Stephen's death gutted us all, but could it have been prevented or could we have done something back then to stop everything that happened after that? I've spent a lot of time since I've been here thinking about all of these things. What else there to do here when I'm not trying to survive? I don't think that we could have done anything to stop her when Stephen was killed. I do think that we could have prevented Cutter's death and the attack on the ARC, though. I don't know how, but I can't help thinking that there was something that could have been done. Even if we had stopped Cutter's death, would it have stopped everything that happened after that? Could Cutter have found a way to unlock the secrets of anomaly travel if he had been given enough time or would Helen have found a way to try to destroy us no matter what? I don't know the answer to that and I have gone over it in my mind time and time again. What I do know is that I wish there had been another way to stop her. I wish it hadn't cost so many lives._

 _I wish it hadn't cost me Becker..._

 

After everything was said and done, there was really no other choice that could have been made. Helen Cutter needed to be stopped – no matter what. If it meant chasing her through anomaly after anomaly, then that’s what they would have to do. It had been bad enough when she had made attacks on them and killed Cutter, but taking Christine Johnson hostage and coldly feeding her to the future predators had crossed the line. Granted, Christine had been an interfering bitch and none of the ARC team had cared for her, they hadn’t approved of cold-blooded murder, either.

Not to mention, it caused horrible flashbacks for Abby and Connor over the circumstances of Stephen Hart’s death.

When Danny said they had to stop Helen once and for all, the entire team had quickly agreed with him. Since they had the most field experience with the anomalies and with Helen, the two of them would be accompanying Danny. Everyone agreed that they were the best ones for this mission.

Correction. _Almost_ everyone agreed.

Becker had a hard time with the decision and an even harder time accepting it.

“I should be going with you,” he said quietly to Abby as he was overseeing the putting together of survival packs for the three of them. There was no one else he was going to trust to pack supplies for his girlfriend and their two friends. “I’m head of the security and I should be there to watch your backs.” He was staring at the table in front of him and not looking at her.

“They need you here, love,” Abby murmured, running her hand along his back soothingly. “You’re the _best_ there is – and Sarah and Lester need you here to protect them.”

“ _You_ need me,” he said, fitting a few more knives into the packs in front of him.

“I will always need you,” she agreed, moving between him and the table so that she could make him look her in the eyes. “But more importantly, I need to know that you’re here protecting our friends in case Helen gets past us and comes back here. You’re the only one that I trust completely in keeping Sarah and Lester safe from that bitch.”

“Abby…” He sighed and looked down into her face. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me choose. I can’t choose someone else’s well-being over yours.”

“I’m not,” she said softly. “I’m not asking you to choose. I’m asking you to protect my best friends while I’m away. I’m asking the man that I love more than anything to keep them safe while I’m unable to, because I know that he’s the one that can.”

He pulled her against him, not caring who might walk by and see them. It wasn’t as if their relationship was much of a secret. That idea had been blown all to hell when he found out about the terror birds that had attacked her and the others while he was playing spy games with Christine. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as he buried his face in her hair. He tried to steady himself, knowing that it wouldn’t help either one of them if he didn’t keep himself pulled together and his emotions in check.

“I can’t lose you,” he finally whispered. “You’re the best thing in my life and I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me, love.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I will always be with you, no matter where I am.”

“If anything happens to you…”

“Nothing is going to happen to me.” She laid her head against his chest. “Do you honestly think that Danny will allow anything to happen? That Connor will? I’ll be perfectly safe while we’re gone.”

Becker sighed, not saying anything. What was there to say? She was right; his skills were needed more here. Yes, he had a good team of men under him, but when it came to his friends, he didn’t trust their safety to anyone but himself.

“I’ll only be gone a few hours, love,” she reminded him. “It will only be a day or two at the most. We’ll go to the future, take care of Helen and come right back home.”

“I know,” he said reluctantly. “I know, but I still don’t like it. I hate any of you going through an anomaly and I hate that she’s made this whole mission necessary.”

She nodded. “None of us like that we have to do this, but it has to be done.” She pulled her head back to smile slightly up at him. “I’ll make it up to you when we return home.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll make what up to me?”

“I’ll make up for the worry and the fact that you and your guns are staying behind and letting me go through the anomaly without you.”

He smirked at her. “Do I get to use the handcuffs?”

Abby laughed and then nodded. “Yes, love, you can even use the handcuffs.”

Becker sobered, looking into her face like he was determined to memorize every inch of her. “Promise me, Abby. Promise me that you’ll be careful.”

“Hil…”

“I mean it, Abby,” he said fiercely. “I know that sometimes you take foolish risks for those around you or creatures, but you can’t do that this time. I’m not going to be there this time to help, so I need you to promise me that you’ll be more careful than you’ve ever been before.” His eyes flashed with emotion as he tightened his hold on her. “If you don’t promise me that, then I swear to god I will tie you up and take you back to my flat and Danny and Connor can find someone else to go with them.”

Abby stared up into his face for several long moments and then nodded. “I promise you, Hil. I promise that I will be as careful as I can possibly be.”

He nodded, then leaned down and kissed her fiercely. Abby’s return kiss was just as fierce. She clung to him, letting him take the lead as they kissed and ran their hands over each other for the next few moments. Finally Becker lifted his head and swallowed hard. His breathing was ragged, as was hers and it was a struggle for him to set her away from him.

“Go talk to Lester and finish the planning,” he said reluctantly. “Go talk to Lester or I’m taking you right here against the wall and to hell with anyone who might see.”

“I love you,” she said softly.

“Don’t.” He cautioned her, tension in his voice. “Don’t say it like that because it seems too close to you saying goodbye.”

“It’s not goodbye, love.”

“I know that, but it sounds like it.”

Abby nodded, turning for the door.

“Abby?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“When you get back, I’m shagging you so hard that you won’t be able to walk right for a day or two.”

She gave him a faint smile. “I’m going to make sure you deliver on that promise, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Becker was silent as he assisted Abby with her backpack, quietly murmuring to her that there were enough supplies in the pack for a week’s stay. He went over the contents with her and then looked into her eyes for a long moment. Taking a deep breath, he finally sighed and squeezed her hand. She gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand in return before she turned to go speak with Sarah.

“I’ll keep her safe, mate,” Danny said to Becker when he finished going over last minute details with him. “I’ll keep both of them safe.”

“You had better, Quinn,” Becker responded, his voice tight with emotion. “Because if anything happens to them…” He swallowed hard. “If she gets hurt I will rip you to pieces.”

“I care about them, too,” Danny retorted, tightening the straps on his shoulders. “If there was any other way to do this without risking her and Connor, don’t you think I would have already mentioned it? It tears me apart that the two of them are endangering themselves with me on this!” His voice dropped so that only Becker would hear him. “I don’t like risking them like this. I don’t like the idea that Helen could hurt them when they’ve both been hurt enough. However, like Abby pointed out oh so helpfully, she and Connor know more about her and these things than the rest of us do because they’ve been working with them longer.”

Becker studied Danny for a moment and realization dawned in his eyes. “You lo --.”

Danny shook his head, cutting him off. “Don’t. Don’t say it because if you say it, that means trouble. Besides, you and Abby are very happy and fit together and I would never think to do something to jeopardize what you have. If they had any idea…”

“One of them or the both of them would do something incredibly selfless and stupid to protect you,” Becker finished quietly. He knew first-hand how Abby would throw herself into danger to protect someone that she cared about or that cared about her. He could only imagine that Abby and Connor doing it together would be a hundred times worse.

“Dracorex. Mad idiot from the past with a sword. Abby.” Danny was a lot calmer about something when he could look back on an event than he was when it was actually happening in front of him.

“I remember.” It was not a fond memory. He was never going to forget the way that Abby had looked when she had the point of a sword at her throat. With the exception of Helen, he had never wanted to kill someone so badly in his life.

“That won’t happen on my watch,” Danny’s comment brought Becker’s mind back to the present and what was about to happen. “I won’t let either of them make any foolish stands. The point of this mission is to put an end to Helen’s machinations no matter how we have to accomplish it. Neither one of them are going to try going out on a limb for her.”

“No, but if she tried to use one of you as leverage against another’s actions…”

“Not. Gonna. Happen.” Danny had two guns with him for a damn good reason. “Is Abby armed?”

“There’s a gun in her pack and she’s also carrying knife and a taser.” Becker wasn’t about to let his girlfriend go into that messed-up future without being heavily armed. “Your pack and hers also have an extra box of ammunition.”

“At least we’re chasing her through a future apocalypse and not the past.” At Becker’s questioning look Danny shrugged. “Fossil record.”

“Screw the fossil record,” Becker said succinctly. “If it comes down to a choice between preserving a fossil record and saving my friends, I choose my friends.”

“So do I. Then again, I’m not the archaeologist or scientist of this group. I’m the temper and the tactician.” Becker raised an eyebrow. “Ok, not so much a tactician as a planner of insane ideas that always seem to work.”

"Like stealing helicopters and acting as bait for a really big dinosaur?"

"It was a wonderful plan and it saved everyone that needed saving."

"True, but I wonder what the academics will say when they unearth a helicopter in the Jurassic?"

"Aliens."

“You’re barmy, you do realize that, right?”

Danny grinned at him. “Mate, sometimes you have to be to handle this job. Think about the things we’ve seen and had to experience since we got hired by the ARC. We all have to have a little bit of crazy in us or this job would have broken us.”

“You know that I really hate it when you’re right, Quinn.”

“One of these days, you’ll get used to it.”

Becker snorted. “It doesn’t happen enough for me to get used to it.”

“You wound me, Becker. I thought we had something special.”

He shook his head, a smile crossing his face in spite of everything else he was feeling. “You’re a right mess, you know that?” His smile dimmed. “Take care of the bitch and then get all of you back here.”

“We won’t be gone long enough for you to miss us, Becks.”

“Guess I’ll have to work on my aim then.”

Danny looked startled and then smiled. “You’re getting better with the comebacks, Captain. I guess spending time with our Abby is working on relaxing that tight ass of yours.”

“It’s a special kind of disturbing to hear you talking about my ass when you’re about to take my girlfriend and go through an anomaly to a really dangerous future, Quinn.”

“What can I say? I’m a special kind of guy.”

“In many ways,” Becker muttered, shaking his head as he tightened the straps on Danny’s backpack.

Danny suddenly grabbed Becker’s face between his two hands and kissed him. When he let go of him and stepped back, the other man staggered. “Don’t worry, Becks. We’ll be back too soon for you to worry and we can talk more about your ass.”

Before Becker could react to that, Danny walked through the anomaly and disappeared. He watched them, and Abby smiled and gave him a little wave before she and Connor also walked through the anomaly. He took a shuddering breath as he stared after them.

They had to come back safely. They just _had_ to. He wasn’t sure he would be able to handle things if it happened any other way.

He remained silent until Sarah came to stand beside him. He could feel her looking at him for a few moments before she looked back towards the anomaly.

"They will be back," Sarah said finally. "They're the best ones for this. Lester would never have agreed to let them go if he didn't believe that."

"I don't doubt their skills or abilities," Becker responded. "It's what Helen might do to them or the idea that one of those predators will get them."

"We can't think like that," she murmured. "We have to think the best and have faith in them that they can take care of this and return to us in one piece."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

It didn’t take long for things to start going against all of the plans they had so carefully made. In fact, the problems started almost immediately.

After running from the future predators that seemed to be everywhere, the three of them became trapped in a building with Helen and some kind of computer console. Connor reluctantly gave Helen the artifact from Nick. He hadn’t wanted to but when Helen held the gun on Abby and he had seen the quick flash of emotion in Danny’s eyes, he had no choice. He couldn’t let Abby die when there was something he could do to prevent it.

That was when everything seemed to go so very wrong.

Helen slid the artifact into a panel and the console lit up… with the insignia of the ARC.

“The future ARC,” Abby breathed.

“The future that the ARC has caused,” Helen agreed. “It is people working for the ARC that cause everything you see outside.”

“The people we know and work with would never let something like this place happen,” Danny said quietly. “We value life.”

“Besides, from what I understand, you had a hand in creating those future predators.” Abby’s voice was soft.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Helen said, not looking up from the touch pad on the console. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Helen said, not looking up from the touch pad on the console. “Humanity went wrong somehow and destroyed everything.”

“Humanity?” Danny scoffed. “More like certain members of the so-called human race did this while they were trying to seize power over every living being.”

“Humans aren’t wise enough to handle such power. It was a failed experiment.”

“What was a failed experiment?” Abby asked.

“Humanity.”

“Hey now,” Connor inserted. “Humanity hasn’t failed anything. We’re still growing and evolving. That’s what happens with all life. They grown and they learn and because they learn, they evolve into something better.”

“Look around you, Connor,” Helen said. “This is the result of humanity evolving. Everything dead or dying; humans forced into underground cells because they’ve destroyed the air quality and the water table. It’s not just here, either, but all over the planet. Humans are a plague and like a plague, they need to be dealt with aggressively.”

“How far?” Connor questioned, trying to make sense out of everything she was saying.. “How far in the future are we?”

“Far and yet not so far,” Helen responded quietly. She looked up from the console to start at him. “In normal circumstances, you’d be alive to see it happen.”

Danny frowned, moving closer to Connor. He didn’t like the way Helen said that. “Normal circumstances?”

“It’s not going to happen because I’m going to stop it.”

The three of them stared at her for a long moment. They knew she had been planning something, but this was beyond anything they could have guessed.

“You’re daft,” Abby finally said. “Haven’t you learned yet that trying to mess with time and bend it to your own whims causes nothing but the cycle of death and destruction to continue? Did killing Stephen and Nick teach you _nothing_?” She shook her head. “Killing them did nothing to stop the destructive future you kept talking about. Looking around, it seems to have only made things so much more worse.”

“Because I didn’t handle it right,” Helen responded, her hands moving faster along the console in front of her. “I didn’t do enough research or go back in time far enough to make the changes that need to be made to stop this wanton destruction.”

“So what? You go back a few more years and start killing people when they’re even younger? Murder in the name of science? You can’t do that and you won’t get away with it.” Danny’s eyes were hard. “There are words for what you are, Helen, and none of them are savior or protector. In fact, the nicest one I can think of is terrorist.”

“I’m not a terrorist, Quinn.” There was annoyance in Helen’s voice.

“The similarities are certainly there.”

“Terrorists subsist on fear. They like scaring everyone and letting everyone know that they’re the ones responsible for some act of murder or wanton destruction. I don’t go around telling people what I’m trying to do and what I do is always for the greater good.”

“Killing Nick was not for any kind of greater good,” Connor sputtered. “You killed him because you couldn’t control him and because he was falling in love with someone else.”

“Personal ego has no place in science, Connor.”

“No, it doesn’t, but you’ve let yours get the better of you more than once.” Connor returned. “Your ego caused Stephen to be killed. Your ego led to your shooting of Nick.”

“I shot Nick because there was nothing else I could do. He was blinded by the ARC and didn’t care about the damage that it was going to lead to.” She shook her head. “I didn’t enjoy killing Nick. He was my husband and I loved him at one time. With science comes sacrifice and Nick was betraying his nature and everything he had learned.”

“Nick didn’t betray anything. He was following his conscience and following where the science led him.”

“And I’m not?”

“No, you’re not. He was trying to understand how the anomalies worked and he was trying to protect life. All we’ve seen since we met you is how easily you can destroy life.”

“Oh, Connor, you remind me so much of Nick when we were younger. So passionate about life and finding all of the answers. In the end, though, he didn’t like the answers that he found.”

“He didn’t like the answers that you gave him,” Abby corrected. “He wanted to protect life and he wanted to find out if anomalies were a new thing or if they had been happening since before recorded time. He didn’t agree with you that the work being done at the ARC was adding to destruction. Nick wouldn’t have been involved in anything that was as destructive as you claimed it to be. You tried to make him believe Lester was the villain, when all of the time it was you. You’re the one who kept trying to sabotage our work. You’re the one who was feeding information to Leek and causing Nick to distrust the people he needed to trust.”

“He trusted you and Connor no matter what, though, didn’t he Abby?”

“Because he knew that we could be trusted and that we had the same regard for life and creation that he did.”

“But he never approved of the way you took care of the creatures that were stuck here, did he?”

“He was angry about Rex because I didn’t tell him when it happened. It made him think I didn’t respect or trust him. It would have been a lot different if he had been alive to tell about Sid and Nancy.” Abby swallowed. “He would have understood why I couldn’t let them be penned up at the ARC. Thanks to you, however, we never got the chance to have that particular conversation.”

“How many dinosaurs do you have at your flat, Abby?” Danny questioned her.

“Three, but this is not the time or place to discuss that, Danny.”

“Three? You have three dinosaurs living at your flat? What do you feed them all?”

“Danny!”

“Three?!”

" _Danny!_ ”

Helen seemed to be amused at the exchange between the two of them. “I see that you haven’t trusted Nick’s replacement enough to fill him in on certain things.”

“Well, you know, we haven’t had time to bring him up to date on three years of research and incursions,” Connor grumbled. “It’s not like this is the _Matrix_ or anything, yeah? We’ve needed time to have a sit down, but thanks to everything with you, we haven’t been able to do that between trying to stop you from you know, _killing people_.”

“I figure that after all of this is over and you’re in a nice padded cell where you belong, me and my team can have us a sit down at a nice pub and make sure that all pertinent information gets shared.” Danny’s smile was just this side of being mocking.

“I’m not going to be locked up, Danny,” Helen said calmly as she finished what she was doing. “And they’re not your team. They will never be your team. They _were_ Nick’s team. But soon, they won’t be anyone’s team because there won’t be an ARC or a team.”

Connor’s eyes widened. “You can’t destroy the ARC. You already tried that once and you failed.”

“You think too small, Connor,” Helen said with a smile as she withdrew the artifact and balanced it in her hand. “What I need to do is much bigger than simply taking down the ARC. I’ve learned a lot since then.”

“What are you going to do?” Abby’s voice was tense.

“You’ll see.” She tilted her head. “Or maybe you won’t.”

Keeping her eyes on Abby’s, Helen lifted her hand and then dropped it, smashing the artifact into the floor. There was no ignoring the shattering sound that it made when it connected with the floor.

“NO!” Connor yelled, dropping to the floor and reaching for the artifact with a mixture of emotions bleeding into his eyes. “No! How could you do that? There was so much that we didn’t know about this! Nick gave his life to protect this!”

“He didn’t understand, Connor, and he didn’t protect it well enough did he? I don’t need the artifact any longer and after I’m done, you won’t either.” She hit a panel on the console and from the hall behind her came the unmistakable sound of an anomaly opening. “It really is for the best, you know. I have to fix what mankind has done to this planet. It’s the only way.” She lifted a gun and aimed it at Abby. “I wouldn’t get any ideas about following me if I were you, Quinn. I’ll kill her before you can even get close.”

Danny clenched and unclenched his hands. He knew that Helen was right; he couldn’t outrun a bullet. Even if he would normally play the odds with his own life, he wouldn’t risk someone else’s life like that.

Helen smiled and started walking down the hallway backwards, the aim of her gun never wavering from Abby.

“I wouldn’t be too upset,” Helen said calmly as she stopped in front of the anomaly. “It will all be over soon, anyway.” She nodded at Abby and turned, walking through the anomaly.

As soon as there was no longer a gun pointing at her head, Abby ran down the hall, only to see the anomaly close behind Helen. “Damn it!” She turned to look over her shoulder. “Connor!”

“Already working on it!”

Abby jogged back to where her two friends were and watched Connor’s hands moving across the computer terminal. “Can you make sense out of it?”

“The technology is beautiful,” Connor enthused as he rapidly pressed keys on the surface of the giant terminal. “I would love to have something like this to tinker with and explore back –“

“ _Connor_!”

Danny’s impatient voice knocked him back into the seriousness of the situation. “I can trace the last coordinates she used so that we can follow her to her destination and stopping her.” He frowned. “Wait. This can’t be right.”

“What?”

Connor’s fingers moved swiftly over the terminal. “These coordinates are to the Cretaceous Era,” he said in confusion. “That’s long before any hominids showed up on the planet. Why would she be going there?”

“She’s trying to divert us and cover up her real destination,” Danny said. “There’s no other explanation for it.”

“Looks like we’re going to be playing a bit of tag through time then,” Abby said, adjusting her pack. “It doesn’t matter why she’s going to that time period, only that she’s going to be up to no good no matter where she ends up. We have to find her and stop her.”

“Oh no,” Connor said quietly, raising his eyes to look at his two companions. “I think I know where she’s going.”

Danny lifted an eyebrow. “Where?”

Connor swallowed hard. “When she was pretending to be Eve, Sarah and I were going through one of her journals and she kept making reference to Site 333.”

Abby gasped as her eyes filled with horror. “She wouldn’t! Not even Helen could be that insane.”

“Can’t she?” Connor returned. “You heard her, Abby. She was talking about not going back far enough and how she needs to fix what mankind has done to this planet.”

“But that will kill her, too!”

“Not thinking that she’s caring about that little detail.”

“Back up,” Danny said firmly. “What the hell are the two of you talking about?”

“Site 333 is the first known site in history where mankind started evolving,” Abby said in a whisper. “Helen Cutter is going back in time to wipe out all of humanity.”

“You have got to be fucking joking.”

“I wish I was, mate,” Connor said quietly.

Abby shook her head. “I knew she was insane after seeing everything else she’s done, but this is beyond insane. She’s planning to erase the entire human race.”

Danny took a deep breath. “Well, it looks like our mission has undergone a sudden and necessary change.”

“We have to follow her and stop her,” Abby agreed. “If Connor can open up that last anomaly, we’ll have to go through it and keep chasing her no matter how many anomalies and eras we have to pass along the way.”

“Shouldn’t we tell the others,” Connor questioned, looking from Abby to Danny.

“There isn’t time,” Danny sighed. “We have to go and go now. If everything goes like it should, they’ll never have to know what happened until we get back home and tell them.”

Connor looked down and then nodded. “You’re right. We have to stop her before she starts doing any lasting damage.” He ran his fingers over the terminal again and they heard the anomaly flare to life. “Please keep your arms and luggage inside the ride at all times,” he muttered, picking up his discarded backpack and tucking the relic into it. There was a chance that he could find a way to make it work again after this was all over. He looked at Abby and Danny. “We have a crazy person to catch.”

Danny nodded and the three of them headed down the hall and through the anomaly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Getting through the anomaly was the easy part. It was everything that happened afterward that changed their plans even more than they had already been forced to.

After all, the original plan was that they would all three go after Helen together. Doing it that way guaranteed success and let them keep an eye on each other and protect each other.

“Raptors!”

Connor yelled shortly after they stepped through the anomaly and heard something coming towards them from the opposite direction of where they could see Helen running.

Abby groaned inwardly. _Velociraptors._ Of course they would get attacked by raptors right when they were trying to catch Helen. Of course the one dinosaur that was almost as smart as humans would be the ones that caused them to get sidetracked.

She could help herself from pausing to look and make sure there were no radio controls on their heads. Helen had done that before with the future predators, after all.

“The trees,” Abby commanded Danny and Connor. “They can out run us, but they can’t out climb us!”

At least, she hoped that her recollections from all of her studies were true. She had heard – and seen the last time they came through to their time – them do amazing things, but she was almost sure that they couldn’t climb trees. Jumping onto moving elevators, yes, they could do that. Climbing trees, no. She hoped that her bit of knowledge still held true.

“Up!” She yelled. “We have to get higher than they can jump.”

The problem with paying so much attention to her companions getting to safety, she was almost blind to her own danger. She jumped up to pull herself up onto a branch right as one of the Raptors made a leap for her. Danny and Connor pulled her further up the tree, holding her to the branch that they had taken refuge on.

“What now?” Danny asked. “I highly doubt that they are just going to get tired and go away.”

Abby shook her head. “Not a chance. They’re too intelligent for that. They can’t get to us, but they also know that we can’t escape them. They can take turns waiting us out.”

“Bloody hell,” Danny muttered, glaring down at the dinosaurs that kept trying to jump up onto the low branches of the tree. “So how do we get them to go away so that we can get down and stop Helen?”

“Becker!” Connor whooped as he went through one of the pockets of his backpack. “Flash grenades. He gave us flash grenades!”

Abby could feel herself smiling in spite of the situation. Her boyfriend was a genius. “The concussive blasts from one or two of them will knock out the raptors and we can get past them long before they regain consciousness!”

“Do it, Connor,” Danny ordered, watching the Raptors below them. “We don’t have time to mess around with these blasted animals.”

Connor nodded and pulled out one of the grenades. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the pin and tossed it into the center of the Raptors. “Hang on,” he warned them.

It was a good thing he had warned them to hold on because when the grenade exploded, it shook the ground and the tree. When the aftershocks subsided, Abby looked down.

“A few of them are still moving,” she noted, chewing on her bottom lip. Even a groggy or wounded Raptor was a dangerous thing.

“I’ll toss another one down and that should take care of all of them.”

It was a sound plan. It was a good plan. It should have fixed the problem they were having and they would have been able to get out of the tree and start the chase after Helen again.

That was what should have occurred when the second grenade left Connor’s hand.

Later, Abby wouldn’t be able to say what exactly went wrong, but the grenade exploded too soon when Connor dropped it. He hadn’t had time to adjust his grip on the tree and Abby screamed as he fell to the ground among the Raptors.

For a moment, she couldn’t see as the flash was too bright, but as soon as her eyes cleared, she searched for Connor and saw him crumpled not far from their tree.

“Oh god,” she whimpered as she started to descend from her perch. This could not be happening. It just couldn’t.

It didn't take long for Abby and Danny to get down to the ground where Connor had fallen. Her breath seized in her chest for a moment when she saw that he was unconscious. Luckily, so were all of the Raptors.

"Connor! Connor!" Abby cradled his face between her hands, willing him to open his eyes while Danny checked to make sure that he was still alive. "Wake up, please wake up."

Danny peered over her shoulder and then grabbed her arm. "Abby, you have to go."

She gave him a startled look. "What?"

"You have to go after Helen. You have to stop her."

"I can't leave Connor!"

Danny reached out and grabbed her with both hands. "I'm stronger, but you're faster. You have to stop Helen and I'll take care of Connor. I'll get him somewhere safe, I promise. But there's not much time and you _have_ to go now, before she gets away."

Abby looked at him for a long moment and then looked down at Connor's too still face. "Danny --"

"I know, love. He'll be okay, I promise." He reached at his back and pulled out his extra gun, pressing it into her hand. "Two guns are always better than one."

Abby knew that there was no other choice and that Danny was right. She had the best chance of catching up to Helen, and Danny had the best chance of getting Connor to safety. She nodded, double-checking the gun before sliding it into her jacket pocket. She leaned down to kiss Connor before she got to her feet. Danny got to his feet as well and pulled her close to him for a hug.

"You make sure she's dead, Abby. Don't take any chances and you make sure you keep yourself safe and get your ass back here as soon as you take care of her." He kissed the top of her head and then gave her a little push. "Go!"

Abby looked at Connor once more before turning and kissing Danny's cheek. Then, before she could change her mind, she ran off in the direction Helen had gone.

Danny watched her go. "Be careful, Abby," he said softly. "Damn it, please be careful."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Abby ran through the forest with an almost single-minded determination. When she saw Helen disappear through a second anomaly, she didn’t even hesitate and ran through after her. She didn’t even stop to think about where they were going or what might happen, she just knew she needed to stop Helen from wiping out humanity.

When she gathered her bearings on the other side of the anomaly, she realized she wasn’t exactly sure what direction to go in. Even though she was moments behind Helen coming through, there was no sign of the older woman.

This was not a good start to what she needed to do.

Taking a deep breath, she looked around the anomaly. She was looking for tracks like Becker – and before him, Stephen – had taught her to do. The sting of pain served to remind her of how much damage Helen had already done to them and how much more she would cause to others if she wasn’t stopped.

It didn’t take her long to find a set of prints that normally wouldn’t be in their current era. Shoe tracks where there shouldn’t be. Abby shifted her backpack and started following in the direction that the tracks headed off into. Helen couldn’t have that much of a head start on her.

It didn’t take her long to find that Helen had had just enough of a head start to cause some damage.

Abby crouched down to the first body, searching for any signs of life. It was no use. All of the members of this family group were dead. She felt an immense wave of sorrow for these people. That sorrow overwhelmed the feeling of desperation that had been driving her since they had followed Helen from the future.

Part of her had held out hope that Helen really wouldn’t do something so insane; so monstrous. Killing Stephen and Nick had been horrible and destructive, but this was so much more. These were innocent creatures who had never done anything wrong to anyone. These innocents were Helen’s ancestors too, and now Abby was aware of just what kind of a monster Helen really was.

She was glad Cutter and Stephen weren’t alive to see what the woman they once loved had become. For the first time, she thought it might be a mercy that they couldn’t see this and wouldn’t see what was about to come.

Seeing these bodies caused something to shift inside Abby. As she straightened up, she felt something inside of her breaking because she knew what she had to do. Something broke inside her because she was about to do something that she would never have considered before.

When she first chased after Helen, she had the wild idea that she could talk sense into her. Failing that, she had planned to attack Helen and knock her out. Once she was unconscious, she would tie her up and drag her back to Danny and Connor. After that, they could take her back to the ARC and incarcerate her or find some other way to deal with her. She had held out hope that somehow, some way, Helen could be brought back to her senses; that she could again be the woman that two brilliant men had loved a long time ago. However, she realized that this was never going to happen. There was only one thing that she could do now.

 _Kill Helen Cutter._

In destroying all of these creatures and starting on her quest to wipe out humanity, Helen had not only crossed the line, she was about to cause Abby to set foot on a course that she could never come back from.

In trying to kill humanity, Helen Cutter had turned Abby Maitland into a killer.

Because Abby knew that once she crossed that line, there was nothing she could do to come back from that. Taking someone’s life was something that would change her irrevocably and she wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to look at herself the same way.

With this one conscious decision, Abby was going to forever be worried that she would turn into a monster like Helen.

After all, Helen hadn’t started out being a killer, either. Once upon a time, she, like Abby, had been a scientist. Once upon a time, she had been dedicated to the study of life and understanding the world around them. Wasn't that the woman that first Nick and then Stephen had fallen in love with?

Had she changed like Abby was about to change -- because she made the conscious decision to kill someone after she left them? Is that what caused Helen Cutter to lose her mind and her morals? Or, had she always been like that beneath the surface and Nick and Stephen had just never realized that she was bad to the core?

Abby really wished she knew, because she was afraid that after she did this, nothing was ever going to be the same for her. Making the decision to kill Helen was going to affect just more than her conscience and her inner moral compass. Killing someone was going to change her in the eyes of the man she loved more than anything. Becker _protected_ people and he honored life. Until this trip, so had she.

Abby shoved those thoughts deep into her mind so that she could focus on what she needed to do. She looked around the area and saw something flash from further up the river. She shifted her pack and followed the river up the hill and that was where she found Helen pouring something from a canister into the river. The river that carried drinking water down to the tribe of people that had recently died. Something akin to rage moved through Abby as she came into Helen's sight.

"You murdered them."

"I didn't murder them. All I've done is protect the future of this planet."

"These aren't some kind of terrorists, Helen! These are our ancestors and they're innocent of any kind of wrong doing. You can't hold them responsible for the things that have happened in our time."

"Their descendants ruined our planet. If they don't evolve, then this planet is protected from them."

"You murdered them in cold blood, Helen. You're a monster!"

"A monster just destroys everything for no reason, Abby. I'm saving the planet."

"By wiping out all of humanity! By killing all of the people and places that evolve from who and what they are. The people all over the world who make such strides in art and religion and knowledge -- knowledge like ours. Some of them will evolve to become scientists. They become just like us."

"But most of them will become business conglomerates or weapons manufacturers. They'll destroy this planet with chemicals and harmful weapons that kill all of the plants and animals that they can't turn into genetic monsters."

Abby shifted her stance, walking a little closer to Helen. "That might be true with a small amount of evolved humans, but these creatures here have done no wrong and don't deserve to be murdered like this!" Abby shook her head. "This is wrong."

“It’s not wrong, Abby,” Helen’s tone didn’t change even as Abby got closer. “It’s all about protecting the sanctity of life on this planet. Humanity has nearly destroyed it and humanity is going to make amends for it by preventing the destruction from ever happening.”

“Sanctity of life?” Abby scoffed. “Since when has life become sacred to you, Helen? Where was that protectiveness of life when you caused Stephen to be eaten alive? Where was that belief of life being sacred when you killed Nick – or when you murdered Christine Johnson? When you were killing those people you certainly didn’t seem to believe in life. Well, you didn’t believe in anyone else’s life but your own.”

The expression on Helen’s face changed for a moment and then she sighed, shaking her head. “The deaths of Stephen and Nick were unfortunate but couldn’t be prevented. As for Christine, well, you should be thanking me for removing such a dangerous enemy from the lives of all of you. She was focused on nothing less than absolute power and the destruction of anyone who got in her way.”

“And you’re so different than her in that capacity? What the hell do you call travelling back in time to kill the ancestors of mankind? This is nothing but you trying to be all powerful and destroying everything that you don’t agree with.” Abby’s voice hardened. “The deaths of Stephen and of Nick were uncalled for and they could have been avoided. _You_ caused Stephen’s death and you’re the one who shot Nick. Don’t you dare try to tell me that those deaths were unavoidable.”

“Stephen wasn’t supposed to die, Abby. He’s the one that chose to sacrifice himself for Nick and the rest of you.”

“Because of what you and Leek did!”

“Leek was a mistake.”

“Leek was a lot more than a mistake, Helen.”

Helen looked up from the stream, her eyes focused on Abby for a long moment before she smiled faintly. “You were in love with Stephen.”

“That is so not the point.”

“He loved you, too. Oh, he didn’t want to admit it to me, but I could see it in his eyes when he thought you were in danger. I could hear it in his voice when I told him you were dead.”

Abby’s blood ran cold. “You did what?”

“How else was I going to get him angry enough to come after Lester at the ARC and help me with what needed to be done. He loved me, but he wouldn’t have killed for me. I’d always known that about him. He was very concerned about fairness and being a better person. Even when we had the affair, he was always torn between his love for me and his love and respect for Nick.” Helen sat back on his heels, looking at her. “He wouldn’t have killed for me, and even when I told him that Nick and Connor were dead, he wouldn’t have gone that far, either.”

“Because Stephen wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.”

“He was willing to become one quick enough when I told him that Lester had killed you, as well.”

“How could you? How could you use him like that? He loved you and you got him killed.”

“There are always casualties in war, Abby. Stephen knew that and so did Nick. Your own Captain Becker and Constable Quinn know that. People, good people, always die so that something better can be done for tomorrow and the future.”

If she hadn’t already known what she was going to have to do, when she heard the veiled threat against Becker and Danny, Abby would have made the decision to kill the other woman. To safeguard the people she loved, she could kill.

“Murder isn’t the same as war, Helen,” Abby said evenly. “Killing Stephen and Nick wasn’t war.”

“The losing side always says that.”

“Killing these creatures – these people – it isn’t war, Helen. These people have done nothing wrong. How can you punish them for something their descendants have done when it’s not right?”

“Killing them stops the crimes of their descendants.”

“Killing them kills us as well!” Abby burst out.

“That’s not entirely true,” Helen said, getting to her feet. She brushed her hands off on her pants. “Come with me, Abby.”

That was definitely unexpected. She just stared at Helen for a moment. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why in the hell would you think that I would ever join you in anything?”

“Because you care. What happens to the creatures of this world matters to you and you go out of your way to protect them. You hide the ones you can at your own expense so that they stay safe and don’t get caged up or experimented on.” Helen smirked. “You’re really not all that different from me.”

Abby narrowed her eyes, shaking her head. "I'm nothing like you, Helen. I don't go around causing the deaths of the people who love me to further my own agenda. I don't try to change the way the world has evolved just because I want to grab power."

"This isn't about power, Abby."

"Isn't it? That's all you've ever done since I first met you -- try to grab as much power for yourself as you can and to hell with anyone that might get hurt in the process."

"It's about making the world a better place and undoing what we've done to almost destroy this planet. If humans had never evolved there wouldn't be pollution and large scale destruction of the other inhabitants of the world. Humans have done nothing but kill and destroy ever since they have been able to."

"That's not your call to make! Have bad things happened throughout the history of the world? Yes, no one is denying that. Are humans the cause of all of them? No."

"It is my call to make when I have the capability to stop it and fix everything that has gone so wrong."

"By killing anyone who stands in your way or doesn't think the way that you do." Abby's voice was bitter. "Like Stephen and Nick. Like Claudia Brown -- the woman that Nick cared for before you changed the world."

"I didn't hurt Claudia. In fact, I saved her life. I don't know what happened or why she suddenly disappeared from everyone's memories but mine and Nick's."

"You didn't care, either."

"It wasn't important."

"And that attitude right there is why I'm nothing like you. I care about life -- all life. I don't pick and choose who has the right to live or to die."

"No?" Helen smiled. "I know you, Abby. You've thought about it. You've thought about how much easier things would be if certain people were just out of the way and you could take care of the animals that need you. You've clenched your jaw and you've stayed up nights crying yourself to sleep because the pain has gotten so bad and you don't know if you can get through another day seeing people die for being stupid -- or seeing creatures destroyed because other people couldn't be respectful enough of their boundaries."

Abby shook her head in denial. There had been times like that -- where she had thought things that were best left unspoken -- but she had never shared them and she would never act on them. Life meant too much to her in normal circumstances and she would never have done the things Helen had already done.

"Come with me, Abby," Helen said again. "I have so much that I can show you. Once you see the things I've seen, you'll understand."

"It's kind of hard to make any travel plans like that when you're trying to wipe out our very existence." Abby's voice was carefully controlled.

"You and I can escape that fate if we go through the anomaly that I've already discovered."

"What about the others? Danny and Connor? Lester, Sarah and Jenny? Becker?"

"Their time is done, Abby. Surely you see that. There's a reason that you're the one that is here right now and they're not. They're not true, passionate scientists like the two of us are."

"Those people are important! They have great things to do and people that care about them."

"None of that matters. After we finish here, we'll move on and you'll see how right I've been and that I had no choice but to be the one to take care of things."

 _None of that matters._

Abby heard the words, but she couldn't believe that Helen was actually saying them to her.

"They matter," she insisted. " _Becker_ matters."

"Nothing matters but preserving everything that will be lost in the future. Once we're done here, he'll cease to exist just like the others. He won't even be aware of it happening. I promise he won't feel any pain."

 _Unlike what had happened to Stephen._

The idea of a world without Becker and the others in it made Abby's heart clench.

"Don't." Abby looked at Helen and she was fighting hard to keep control. "Please don't do this."

"You'll see, Abby. This needs to be done and then we'll leave here. The others will become nothing but memories, and soon, those will fade, too."

Abby didn't realize the gun had found its way into her hand until she heard the echo of the shot. She felt her finger squeeze the trigger and another shot sounded. She knew distantly that those two shots had found their mark. She knew that she hadn't missed at this range. However, she heard several more shots as she emptied the clip into Helen's body. It wasn't until she felt the click of the firing mechanism in her hands that she became aware of a harsh breathing sound in her ears. When her hands dropped to her sides, she was surprised to find that tears were streaming down her face and her breathing had become choked gasps.

She forced herself to walk to Helen's body and dropped to her knees beside her. With a shaking hand, she closed the other woman's eyes. She couldn't believe she had actually killed her and it was going to take her awhile to move on from this. Knowing that she needed to be stopped and actually doing it had been two different things.

It was the threat to Becker that had caused her to snap, she could admit that to herself. It had been bad enough to think of him being killed because of what Helen was doing. However, the idea of _forgetting_ about him had snapped something within her. Her memories of those she loved were something incredibly important to her. Being told that she would soon lose all of those memories was apparently the last straw for her self-control.

Not that she had been tempted to follow Helen in her mad quest.

Not that she had been curious to know how Helen intended to wipe out their ancestors and yet keep Abby and herself alive.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there with Helen's body. A sluggish thought moved through her mind that she needed to get back up. She needed to get back to Connor and Danny. She needed to tell them it was over and that they could go home. It was over and they could all rest easily for awhile until the next crisis arrived on their laps.

But she couldn't leave Helen out like this. She couldn't just leave her body her like a piece of carrion. The other woman hadn't always been the twisted person that she had been forced to kill. There must have been something good in her at one time for Nick and Stephen to have loved her.

There had to be more to who she had been than the fanatic that had almost swayed Abby to her way of thinking in an emotional moment.

Swallowing hard, Abby got to her feet and went to where Helen had placed her pack. She ignored the other silver canister she saw in the side pocket. In fact, she ignored the pack all together except for the camping shovel that was tied to one side of it. She wasn't surprised that there was a shovel. Helen had been maddening efficient, after all.

She didn't know how long it took her to do it, but she finally had a shallow hole dug beneath some trees near the river. It wasn't deep enough to discourage predators, but it was just enough to make Abby feel that she had tried to give Helen something respectful.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to do a thorough and careful search of the dead woman's pockets. She wasn't even sure why she was doing so -- unless it was to add to the belongings in an effort to later study them and try to learn what she had. She took everything she removed from Helen's body and placed them in Helen's discarded backpack.

When she had found everything there was to be found, Abby dragged Helen's body over to the hastily dug grave and gently rolled her into it. She quickly covered her in the dirt from the hole and patted it down as best as she could.

"It should have been different," she said softly. "I never wanted to kill, but I couldn't let you kill anyone else, either." She felt a tear slide down her face, but she couldn't honestly say who that tear was for. "I couldn't let you wipe out the entire human race and I couldn't let you take away anyone else that I loved." Abby swallowed, wiping her face. "Maybe now Nick and Stephen's spirits can find peace. Maybe now, they can rest."

She didn't know how long she stood there, but she realized at some point that she had to get moving. She had to get back to the guys so that they could go home.

It was over.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

It didn’t take Abby long to find her way back to the anomaly. Even from where she was moving through the brush, she could see the shards of the anomaly glinting through the trees in the sun. When she saw the shards getting smaller and smaller, Abby kicked into a run. She knew what that meant. Weighed down as she was, she knew she would never make the anomaly on time and so she discarded Helen’s pack as she ran and then she discarded her pack as well.

None of that helped her as she got to the site just in time to watch the anomaly fade and close in front of her.

“No!” She screamed, reaching her hand to where the anomaly had just been. “NO!”

No amount of screaming caused the anomaly to re-open and soon Abby’s throat was too raw from the screaming and the sobbing to keep it up. Her way home had just closed on her, leaving her trapped and alone in an unfriendly past.

After some time, her brain shifted into automatic pilot to focus on her survival for right now. Surviving here would be a lot harder that trying to survive on the streets as a runaway like she once had, but surely she could keep herself alive for a day or two. She could keep herself pulled together and safe until Connor or Sarah managed to open up an anomaly and come get her. When she didn’t make it back to Danny and Connor, they would know she needed help and the entire team wouldn’t rest until she was found.

First, though, she had to make sure that she stayed safe and alive for them to be able to find her.

Between her supplies that Becker had packed her – and god, was she ever going to see him again? – and the supplies she raided from Helen’s belongings, she had a pretty good set of tools and weapons. She kept the gun, even though she knew that the bullets would have to be conserved. (Not to mention what finding bullets in this time period would do to the archaeology records of this time in the future. Professor Cutter would be proud of her for thinking about that, she was sure. Although, the bullets in Helen's body would be difficult in their own way to explain.)

She spent the first few nights up in a shelter of trees that was near the anomaly site. She didn’t have any devices to predict them like Connor did – and she wouldn’t know how to work them if she did – so she had to watch for the anomaly to return.

It never did.

 

It was several hours later when Connor opened his eyes again and Danny felt a sigh of relief escape him when it happened. He had found them a cave to take shelter in when it started getting dark and had wrapped Connor's bruising ankle as best as he could. Now that he was conscious again, he'd have to better gauge the damage and wrap it again.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, mate," Danny said with a grin. "Such as it is."

"Danny? What happened?"

"You fell out of a tree. Knocked yourself out." He paused. "Don't do that again. You weigh more than you look like you do."

Connor sat up carefully and leaned his back against the wall of the cave. He looked around and then frowned. "Where is Abby?"

"She hasn't come back yet." Danny was trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

"Back? Where did she go?" He stared at Danny as realization slowly filled his eyes. "No. Oh Danny, tell me that she didn't!"

"She went after Helen."

"You let her go after Helen alone?! Why did you go and do a daft thing like that?"

"You were hurt and there was no way she could have carried you to get you out of danger from the raptors when they came back." Danny's tone was as level as he could make it. "She runs faster than me, Connor. She was the best choice to keep going. Don't you dare stand on that ankle!"

That last part was because Connor had tried getting up, and slumped back against the stone when his ankle wouldn't hold him. He winced inwardly at Connor's pale face.

"How long has she been gone?"

"Several hours," he answered quietly. "I went to look for her after I got you to safety, but there was no sign of an anomaly."

"So not only are we stuck here, Abby is stuck somewhere else." Connor shook his head, hating this information.

There was only silence in the cave for several moments. Danny leaned back and closed his eyes.

"Danny?"

"Yeah, Connor?"

"Do you think she's still alive?"

"She's Abby." That should have been answer enough. "Besides, she knows that if she gets herself killed by Helen of all people, she'd have to deal with me."

Somehow, that made Connor feel a little better about the entire situation -- which was silly because if Abby was dead she wouldn't be dealing with Danny. He frowned.

"She faced down a Dracorex and a weird man with a sword, and went after future killers even when you told her not to." He sighed quietly. "She won't be beaten by Helen Cutter of all things. Not my Abby."

Danny hoped he was right.

When three days had passed with no sign of Abby, Danny watched Connor withdraw into himself. He hadn't thought anything could ever come close to breaking the other man's spirit, but apparently losing their tiny blond was one of those things that would do it. When Connor stopped talking on the fifth day, Danny was worried that something in him was breaking and would never be repaired. He wasn't going to let that happen. Connor was more than just his co-worker and teammate, he was family. Besides, the last thing he had promised Abby was that he would take care of Connor.

"Connor. She'll be all right and she'll find us."

Connor only responded with a nod and went back to working on whatever it was that he had found in the packs to busy himself with.

The second day of silence. "Connor. Abby has two guns with her. You know as well as I do that Becker has worked her to death with those guns. She can outrun and out shoot Helen Cutter on her worst day."

Again, Connor only shrugged in answer to what Danny was saying. His eyes were full of sorrow and there seemed to be nothing that could be said to make him stop shutting himself down like he was.

It was on the fourth or fifth day of silence that Danny lost his temper.

"Damn you, Connor Temple! Abby would never give up on us no matter what happened so don't you dare just give up on her! You owe her that much." _They_ owed her that much.

He felt like a bastard when Connor's face crumpled and two tears slipped down his cheek. Without thinking about it, he pulled Connor against him and held him tightly.

"It will be all right, Connor," he whispered into his hair. "I promise you that it will be all right."

He prayed that God would allow him to keep that promise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Abby had to leave her shelter in the trees when the Australopithecus tribe that survived Helen’s attack took offense to her being there. Considering what had happened to the other tribe not too far away, she couldn’t blame them for not trusting a creature that they didn’t recognize.

She wasn’t exactly sure where she was going to go from here, but in the interest of staying alive, she was more than happy to get out of the territory of the wary Australopithecus tribe. She didn’t want to hurt them and really didn’t want them to hurt her.

She would much prefer that she found her way back to her own time with no serious wounds.

She traveled for awhile, hoping to come across other anomalies, but that never happened. The first few weeks, she tried talking to herself to keep herself focused, but all too soon that only made her feel like she was losing her mind.

She got used to the silence a lot quicker than she expected. With nothing to distract her, she was able to learn how different animals sounded and how to tell when one of them was hunting or if they were just moving from feeding area to feeding area. It didn’t take long for her to figure out migratory patterns and like every other predator, she learned to follow the herds of plant eaters from season to season.

She counted time by sunrises and sunsets, and wrote down each one in one of the empty journals that had been in Helen’s pack. After she had counted thirty days six times, she wondered if this kind of existence had been what had caused Helen Cutter to go absolutely insane.

There were times that it would have been easy for her to give up, or for her to let her grip on sanity fade away like Helen had done. However, every time she was tempted to just give in to the urges to become more unhinged than she was already, she was reminded that she had something Helen didn’t have.

She had people that loved her waiting for her to find her way home.

She had Becker. Captain Becker with the dark eyes and the fierce protective instinct. The man that loved her completely.

She had Danny and Connor. They loved her, too.

There were Sarah and Jenny and Lester.

These people loved her and needed her to hold onto herself as hard as she could until they could get to her or she could get home.

Even stranded so far in the past and away from those she loved, she had to remember that she wasn’t ever alone.

She had them.

 

It was a year ago today...

Becker couldn't help the sharp stab of pain that went through his chest as he realized what the date was. He made a pretense under normal circumstances of not realizing how much time had passed since their three friends had disappeared, but anyone that knew him was well aware of the truth.

He was well aware of every minute and every day that had passed since they went through the anomaly after Helen. He was even more aware that with every day that passed, people were losing hope about their survival.

He refused to go down that path. He knew that all three of his friends were still alive. He believed that they would one day make it back home. It didn't matter to him that all four missions to find them had ended in failure. It didn't matter to him that people were telling them that they couldn't still be alive.

He knew that they were still alive. He knew in his heart that Abby was alive. He couldn't allow any doubt of that to creep in or it would destroy him.

What he didn't understand is why they couldn't find any sign of Danny, Connor or Abby in the future that the anomaly led them to. There were no signs of Helen Cutter, either.

That led to a series of questions that no one had the answers to. He didn't like unanswered questions and he really didn't like not knowing what had happened to his three friends when they disappeared through the anomaly. People just didn't disappear without a trace and he wasn't about to let anyone believe that of their three missing friends.

 _Something_ had happened once they arrived in the future. _Something_ had altered all of their plans and caused them to be lost.

Becker wasn't going to rest until he knew what had happened and he found their missing people.

Unsurprisingly, it was Sarah who started putting new clues and ideas together. She had been studying Helen Cutter's journal since she had disappeared and their team disappeared after her. She was the one that came to him with a new theory about what had happened once they reached the future. She waited, double and triple checking all of her theories against the information they had. However, it soon became obvious that she needed to share her theory with the rest of them.

She paced nervously in Lester's office as she talked to him, Becker and Jenny.

"I think I know why we aren't able to find any of them in the future -- and it has nothing to do with the future predators getting the drop on them," she said, not really looking at any of them.

"What do you think happened, Sarah?" Jenny's voice was calm as she looked at her friend.

She took a deep breath and met Jenny's eyes. "I think that they're lost in the past somewhere."

There was silence as her words were absorbed.

"What makes you think that, Ms. Page," Lester asked in his usual voice -- after making sure that the door to his office was firmly closed against anyone else hearing their conversation.

She held up Helen's journal. "Because of this. Over and over again, Helen makes reference to site 333 over and over again."

"Site 333?"

"The site where it's believed the first humans evolved from," Jenny said quietly. "Scientists have long believed that it's where Australopithecus took their first steps to evolving into modern day humans."

Sarah nodded. "Scientists call them the First Family and Helen talked about that site at length -- although, later her comments about the place was anything but positive."

"How so?"

"Helen seems to think that Site 333 is where everything with this planet went wrong," Sarah said slowly. "She wanted to change that."

"Change?" Jenny's face went pale. "Oh my god."

Sarah nodded and Becker looked between the two women. He didn't like what he was reading in their expressions, or the fear that was starting to grow in his stomach.

"What?" He demanded impatiently. "What are you thinking has happened?"

"I think Helen has decided to go back into the past and destroy humanity." Sarah said carefully. "I think she decided to put a stop to the evolution of humanity since she thinks that it's one of the worst things to ever happen to this planet."

"Doesn't the woman realize that if she wipes out humanity, she wipes herself out as well?" Lester's voice was full of disbelief.

"Either she doesn't care, or she thinks that she can travel through another anomaly and prevent her own demise."

Becker sighed, letting the back of his head hit the window. "If they knew she was going to do that, they wouldn't have hesitated. They would have chased after her, no matter what the risks were."

Sarah nodded. "If not to safeguard humanity..."

"Then to make sure that we were protected," Jenny finished. "They never would have come back here unless they had been able to stop her."

"They wouldn't have wanted to take that kind of risk with our existence." Becker agreed. "Damn it."

"So this means that we have been looking in all of the wrong places for them, then," Lester said, leaning back in his chair. "Because none of them would have taken time to leave us a message or come back here to tell us that there had been a change of plans." As much as he liked to gripe about them, Danny, Connor and Abby were still _his_ people and he knew how much they cared about him and the others. If they thought there was danger to them the three would be heroes wouldn't have taken the time to alert anyone else.

"And since we're still here, that means that so far, they've managed to stop her and get in the way of her plans."

"That doesn't explain why they haven't come back, yet, though," Jenny pointed out.

"Maybe they can't," Sarah ventured. "If they haven't come back, it could mean that they've become trapped somewhere in the past."

"Then you believe that instead of being dead in the future, they are trapped in the past?" Lester was positive that they could see the headache that was starting to build.

"It does make sense."

"When they went through the original anomaly, it was with the understanding that they were going to stop Helen no matter what the cost," Becker acknowledged quietly. "If she ran into the past, they wouldn't have stopped to think before following her."

"They were aware of the risks," Lester sighed. "Although, I'm not sure any of us realized that she would have decided to go into the past to destroy everything."

"Known or not, the simple fact of the matter is that Danny, Connor and Abby are trapped somewhere in the past and we have no idea how to get to them and bring them home." Jenny's voice was cool.

"If they are even still alive," Lester pointed out. "They could have stopped Helen but have very well been killed when trying to find a way back."

"They're alive," Becker's eyes were dark as he frowned at Lester. "They're still alive. I would know if anything happened to Abby. I would _know_."

"Be that as it may, Captain Becker, the Minister is going to want some kind of assurances or proof that we know what we're talking about. He is not going to let us try to open anomalies and send out missions into the past when we don't even know where in the past we're trying to go." He held up his hand. "Yes, we know -- or think we know -- that Helen Cutter was planning to go to this Site 333 to stop the evolution of humanity; in all probability, by killing them. However, we know Helen. We know that since she was being pursued, she wouldn't make it easy for our people to follow her."

"She would have gone through different anomalies to different points in time so that our people wouldn't have an easy job of following her."

Jenny rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Of course she would. She also knew that as soon as she murdered Christine Johnson, someone from our team would be after her. She had to have known that we wouldn't allow one more death from her -- and she was well aware that we still wanted her to pay for the deaths of Stephen Hart and Cutter."

"My concern is that she did this on purpose." Sarah's voice was quiet.

"What do you mean?" Lester's eyes were fixed on her.

"Well, she knew that they would follow her to the future after she killed Christine. She knew that they simply wouldn't let her get away after everything she had already done." She let out a breath. "She knew they would come after her and she knew that they would keep hunting her if they knew what her plans were. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to say that she led them into the past with the intention of trapping them and keeping them from returning home. It would be like her to pour salt into the wound, so to speak. Let them know what she planned to do and then trap them in a way that they wouldn't be able to interfere in her plans."

"That might have been her plan where Abby and Connor were concerned, but Danny is an unknown entity to her. She wouldn't risk some grandiose plan when there was someone she didn't know that much about involved. All she knows about Danny is that he's the new team leader." Becker shrugged. "She would know how to get to Abby and Connor on an emotional level, but not Danny."

"Purposefully trapping them somewhere would still work because she knows he's the team leader," Jenny argued. "She would know that it would drive Danny crazy not to be able to get Abby and Connor back home. He'd want to get himself back, too, but his focus would be Abby and Connor because he feels responsible for them."

"I really hate that woman," Becker muttered.

"An emotion that we all share, I'm sure," Lester's voice was dry. "What this seems to be coming down to is that we need a new plan. Obviously leading risky operations into that future time is not going to help find our people. We need to come up with a different course of action that will allow us a great deal more success than anything in the last year has done."

"You need to hire more people, James," Jenny said briskly. "At least one new field leader and a few more soldiers. Set them to being the ones that go to each anomaly alert so that the three of us can concentrate solely on research and getting to Danny, Connor and Abby. It would take us less time if we didn't need to be the ones to drop everything and run out the door each time there's an alert."

"Becker can make sure that men are trained to deal with anything that comes through so that he doesn't have to be at each incursion or opening," Sarah added. "I can focus more on Helen's journal, as well as notes in Connor's computers in order to figure out how to open up anomalies to a certain place and time. Helen figured out how to do it and I know that Connor was working on it. We no longer have the artifact from Cutter, but we still have all of this notes and research, as well."

"It appears that you have this all decided without any need for my input." Lester pointed out.

"We need you to keep the Minister and anyone else he sends here off of our backs and out of our business," Jenny responded. "We can't make this work if we're having to stop every five minutes to explain our actions to some idiot who has never set foot out of an office and into a field situation."

Lester raised an eyebrow at Jenny. "I've never been out in the field."

"Perhaps not, but you have seen what can happen when the wrong person has access to everything and you have a better understanding of what we're doing because you have been in charge of the project for the last four years."

"It's not the most perfect plan, but it's a plan," Becker agreed. "It's a hell of a lot more than we've had up until now. We have an idea where to look and we have an idea of what that woman was trying to do. What is left is for us to trace her actions and movements to find our people."

Lester waved his hand dismissively. "Go, get to work. I'll take care of the Minister and his meddling people."

"Are you sure you can take care of them with this one, James," Jenny asked in concern. "It's probably going to get a bit messy. "

"I can handle the bureaucrats right now, Miss Lewis. You focus on the other bits. "

Jenny nodded and left his office just as quickly as she could to catch up with the rest of her team. They had hope and that was a damn sight better than what they'd had this morning.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Neither man could say when their friendship shifted into being something _more_ , but neither one could deny that the feelings had been there even before they ended up cut off from home.

The first time the realization came to Connor was about six months after they had been living in caves and trees. They hadn’t given up on finding Abby or in finding a way back home, but they had also stopped looking at this whole thing as a temporary arrangement. They had no idea of _when_ they would get an anomaly to open up so they could get back home, they just knew it would.

Until then, they had to make sure they survived whatever this place managed to throw at them. This meant that they were fighting against both creatures of this time period and the elements. The logical plan was to therefore create a permanent space for themselves for however long they would be here. They found a cave with an outcropping that was on a cliff overlooking a valley. It gave them a good view of anything coming and the inside of the cave was large enough for them to go far back into the darkness if anything unsavory came too close to investigate.

They were out hunting when the sudden rainstorm had come on without warning and he and Danny had been forced to climb up into a tree for shelter because there was no way they were going to make it back to their cave before travel got too hazardous. The terrain in the Cretaceous was treacherous enough, but trying to get anywhere in a blinding rainstorm was right on this side of suicidal.

The two of them had climbed up as high as they could to avoid predators on the ground, but not so high as to seriously injure themselves if they had to jump from the tree suddenly. They were soaked, but huddled together, trying to get some warmth from the close proximity to each other. Sharing what little body heat that had retained after the rain started was a good thing and Connor didn’t feel like his teeth were going to chatter out of his head any longer.

Danny had been holding onto Connor – either keeping them both steady or worried that if he let go, Connor would fall out of a tree again. At some point, his grip has loosened slightly and his arm was curled more around him as his hand ran up and down his back idly. Connor turned to look at him, but his eyes were closed and he saw that Danny seemed to be slightly more relaxed than he had been since all of this happened. He watched him for a few moments before leaning forward and doing something he had wanted to do to Danny for a long time. He shifted his head against the other man’s shoulder and laid a gentle kiss on his neck.

Danny’s eyes flew open and Connor froze, embarrassed and worried about what Danny’s reaction was going to be to such an intimate gesture from him.

He didn’t have long to wait.

Danny’s eyes met his, as if he was looking for something there, and one hand ran up into Connor’s hair, pulling him closer to him. Connor had enough time to consider how bright Danny’s eyes were before the other man was kissing him. He had never imagined that a kiss could be like this and he had also never imagined that Danny would want to kiss him in such a way.

Connor made a soft sound, his arm going around Danny’s waist to hold him closer and that was a clear signal for Danny to turn the kiss into something deeper; something fierce.

It was several long moments before they broke apart, both gasping for air. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, trying to assess what the other one was thinking. With more hesitation that Connor had ever seen from Danny before, the other man reached out to run his fingers gently against Conner’s jaw.

Connor closed his eyes, leaning into his hand. Danny’s touch was a lot gentler than Connor had ever expected it to be and the calluses on his fingers added something to the sensations he was feeling. He lifted his own hand to run through Danny’s hair and down to the base of his neck, letting his fingers lightly brush at the skin there.

Danny let out a soft groan and pulled Connor close to kiss him again, his tongue moving past his lips to explore the inner contours of his mouth. Connor held tightly to him, returning the kiss with equal fervor. This time, Connor felt other parts of him waking up and before he could pull away from Danny to try to cover his embarrassment about the fact that his erection was becoming almost hard to ignore, he brushed against Danny, and discovered that Danny was just as affected by this as he was.

This time when they parted for air, Connor looked at Danny, noticing how his companion’s eyes seemed a little more glazed than they had before. He could only imagine that his eyes looked the same way.

Connor managed to catch his breath first, never looking away from the other man.

“What’s happening here, Danny?” He finally forced himself to ask.

Danny shook his head. “I know what’s _not_ happening here.”

Connor was surprised at the depth of disappointment that he felt at those words. He swallowed. “Oh?”

“I am _not_ taking you for the first time in a bloody god-damned tree!”

He laughed, his demeanor lightening with the relief he felt. “So there _will_ be a first time, then?”

“And several more times,” Danny said immediately, before he looked at Connor. “I mean, if you’re all right with it.”

Connor didn’t know where the sudden burst of courage came from, but he reached for Danny’s hand and pressed it against his hardening erection. Danny’s hand flexed and then he squeezed Connor gently, pulling a low groan from him. Keeping his hand where it was, Danny kissed him again, stroking the front of Connor’s trousers as he did so.

“Many times, then,” he murmured against Connor’s lips. “But not in the tree. I imagine that bark burns on sensitive places would be a lot more painful than carpet burns."

 

 _…sometimes I wonder if I’m losing my mind here. There are times that I swear I hear my friends or see them and even though I know it can’t be real, I find myself trying to get to them anyway. I know it’s not logical but things stopped working on mere logic when we first discovered the anomalies. Those challenged everything any of us had ever believed about science and how the world worked. Exploring them was always something that seemed so amazing – even though I know Nick thought they were too dangerous to get too close to. But that’s something that I’ve learned comes with the territory on the really important jobs. No matter what, there will always be some kind of danger that is inherent to what you do. Just with our job, the danger is a little more real and has a great many more pointy teeth at times._

 _Pointy teeth and claws have never really scared me all that much._

 _Of course, it was never the creatures that posed the biggest danger to any of us. I wish that Nick would have lived long enough to know that. Yes, the creatures could be a danger when they come through if we weren’t prepared for them – which we are, now. But it was the people that have always ended up being the bigger threat to us and our work with the anomalies. Helen. Leek. Christine. Even poor Stephen to some degree. I don’t mean that he was ever a danger to us, but to the ARC in general. Personally, I know that Stephen would never have willingly done something that would cause harm to me or Connor or Jenny. He wouldn’t have even done anything to purposefully hurt Nick._

 _He was only a danger because of the manipulation of Helen and what his love for her caused him to believe and to be blinded to. He fought with Nick and he walked away from all of us because of Helen. Because of his love for her, he could have helped her to destroy us all. He didn’t. Nick said that Stephen had a rude awakening right before the end and realized what he had helped set into motion._

 _Humans have done more damage to us and to our work than any prehistoric creature has ever even come close to doing to us. Yes, Stephen was killed by creatures, but again, it was because of the actions of a group of human beings. Nick was killed by Helen; by a human being with a weapon and not a creature that came through an anomaly. I don’t know what happened to Leek, but I’m sure it was no more than he deserved after everything he was trying to do to the ARC and to the creatures that we were trying to help or send back to their own times. Unlike the people we have had to deal with since becoming part of this project, animals don’t kill just to kill. They kill for food or for territory or to protect themselves._

 _Human beings don’t do that. Human beings kill each other just to kill. They hurt each other just because they can. It’s not about pack mentality or making sure their genes have a better chance at survival than their competitor. It’s not about making sure that their offspring have a chance to grow up instead of the species that they compete with. It’s nothing so simple and understandable as survival._

 _Humans kill because they can and they kill because they think it will get them whatever they’re trying to hard to get at the time._

 _But how could someone let a small subset of our species define what the rest of the species is all about or what being human means? For the most part, humanity is something wonderful and something that still has so much to learn about this world and have so many gifts to give to the world around them. How could anyone fail to see that or fail to give us a chance to evolve further?_

 _How could a scientist like Helen Cutter have gotten it so wrong?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

When the anomaly alarm went off through the ARC, Becker was in Sarah’s office helping her pour over new notes they had been transcribing from the shorthand characters found in Helen Cutter’s journals. It was the first alarm that had sounded in a few days, so after looking up once at the team rushing to vehicles, he dismissed it from his mind. He was still the leader of the security team, but unless he was needed, he didn’t go out on every call any longer. When there was more than one anomaly opening, he would go – always fighting against the hope that would rise before he could stop it. The problem with hope over the last two years was that it often had a constant companion in despair. Hope would say that they finally might know something and then just as quickly, despair would show him that there was nothing to be found that day.

So when Matt Anderson’s voice came through his earpiece, he almost didn’t respond because he was so involved in what he was reading that he heard him from a distance.

“Captain Becker!” This time Matt’s voice was sharp enough to break through his concentration.

He turned on his device so that he could respond. “Speaking.” Speaking, but not necessarily paying complete attention.

“I can hear that,” Matt retorted, but there was no bite in his voice. “Becker, we need you out here. We have a situation.”

“My men are trained to handle any situation that comes with the territory where the anomalies are concerned,” Becker said calmly. “You don’t need me for that.”

“Not this situation they’re not,” Matt argued. “Look, Becker, from the reports I’m getting, this anomaly brought something more than just creatures through it this time.”

Becker was unaware of his hands curling around the edge of the table until Sarah smacked at him to make him let go. “What’s going on out there, Matt?”

“I’m not there yet, but from what the men are telling me, there are people there.”

“People,” Becker repeated, looking at Sarah as he did so. “How many people?”

Sarah’s eyes widened and she hurriedly contacted Jenny, asking her and Lester to come to her office.

“I don’t know yet,” Matt admitted. “But Becker, one of the descriptions matches Danny Quinn. He’s really giving the men a hard time and I don’t want him to get shot. They’re not live rounds, but as you know even the EMDs can pack a punch.”

Becker’s jaw clenched and he shook his head. “I’ll take care of that.” He switched the channel on his device so that he could issue orders to the team on the open site. “This is Captain Becker,” he said in an icy tone. “Do _not_ fire your weapons on any human beings. I repeat, do not use your weapons on any humans – I don’t care what they do. That is an order. I’m on my way down there.”

He turned for the door, but stopped when Sarah called his name.

“You’ll let us know right away if it’s them.” It wasn’t really a question, but he could hear the same hope in her voice that he was feeling in his chest.

Becker nodded shortly, but his voice was soft. “Of course I will.”

He didn’t wait to hear her response before he was running down the hall and to a vehicle. He didn’t want to hope, but damn it. He just couldn’t help it.

As he drove to the coordinates that he had been given, he tried to keep his thoughts practical.

What if it wasn’t Danny? If it wasn’t Danny, then they would have another mystery on their hands as they tried to figure out who these people were and how they had ended up on the other side of an anomaly that brought them here. People. Matt had said there were people, so that meant more than one. If it was really Danny, then obviously, the other two people had to be Abby and Connor. No one else would be with Danny and Becker would bet his salary that Danny wouldn’t have traveled anywhere with a live Helen Cutter, so it wasn’t her that was there with him.

 _It had to be Abby, Connor and Danny._ It just had to be.

No matter how calm and detached he tried to keep himself, those thoughts kept circling over and over in his mind. His truck had barely screeched to a stop before his feet were on the ground and he was not quite running to the anomaly.

“I promise you that if you point that at him one more time, I’m going to ram it down your pretty boy throat!”

Becker had to stop as his knees threatened to give way and drop him on his ass. He knew that voice. He knew that voice very well. It hadn’t changed much in two years, except that it sounded a lot more rough and tired than it had before. But it was still the same man. Becker elbowed past the circle of men that were keeping the man belonging to the voice from going anywhere.

When he finally had the other man in his sight, it was hard at first for him to speak. But finally after swallowing several times, he got his voice to work.

“Quinn, stop threatening the boys. They might take you seriously and then where would we be?”

“Headed somewhere where they could buy me a decent pint,” was Danny’s immediate response as he swung to smile faintly at Becker. “Well, time sure didn’t do you any favors, Becker. You’re still ugly as hell.”

Becker felt the first decent smile he given in a long time stretch across his face. “It’s nice to see you, too, Danny.”

 

Neither man would be able to remember who moved first, but it didn’t really matter. Before any more words could be said, they crossed the distance between them and were embracing each other tightly.

 

“Uh, Danny?”

Connor’s voice was suddenly far too controlled for Danny’s liking, considering what he had been busy doing to the other man. Danny lifted one hand and drew his nails down along Connor’s chest, smiling against the back of his neck when he felt the body beneath his tremble.

"Connor," Danny questioned in a low voice against his ear as he moved deeper into him. "Do you really want to talk right now?"

Connor shuddered, arching back against Danny, his hands digging into the bedding. He shook his head. "N-not really," he whimpered. "B-but we have to."

"Give me one good reason we should stop doing this --" He bucked his hips against Connor's, causing the other man to make a delightful keening noise deep in his throat as he moved his hand from his chest to encircle his erection and tug firmly. " -- and talk instead."

"B-because," Connor panted even as he pressed back hard against Danny's thrust and twitched in his hand. "T-that's an anomaly."

Danny went still for a long moment and then began thrusting again. "Terrific," he said, running his tongue along the outer part of Connor's ear. "I've shagged you so hard that now you're seeing things."

Connor gasped, trying to find his voice again. Being with Danny always caused him to feel such a multitude of sensations and sometimes the sheer pleasure of it robbed him of coherent speech.

Ok, doing things with Danny _always_ caused him to have a problem with coherency of any kind.

That was why, when he had first seen the shards appear in the air through the trees, he had tried to ignore it. Orgasming with Danny had led to him having hallucinations many times as he came down afterward. However, this wasn't the same. He had never hallucinated an anomaly while shagging Danny -- or being shagged by him, for that matter.

"While I admit to seeing stars quite often when you bring me to an orgasm," Connor whimpered, pushing back again. "I have never once in all of those times hallucinated the shards of an anomaly."

"Damn it," Danny growled, his mouth resting on Connor's neck. "If you're teasing me..."

"I wouldn't tease you about something like this, Danny," Connor assured him. Then with a smile that Danny couldn't see, he arched his back up, tightening his ass around Danny's cock. "Especially since I have much more enjoyable ways of teasing you."

"Fuck, Connor!" Danny's smothered his yelp of surprise against Connor's back, his hips bucking involuntarily.

"Wouldn't you rather finish this on a real bed, Danny?" There was only a small hint of hesitation in Connor's voice. They had never discussed what might change between them when they finally got home and he had never wanted to ask.

Danny heard the unasked question and slid out out of Connor, turning and pulling the other man down onto the ground and into his arms.

"Listen to me," Danny growled. "You listen to me and you listen good, Connor Temple. I don't care what happens when we get home, but you're not going anywhere. You're mine and I'm not letting go of you until you want me to." He looked over Connor's head and saw the shards of the anomaly like Connor had said were there.

"But you love Abby and Becker."

"And you." There was a beat. "Idiot."

"Hey now, how was I supposed to know? It's not like we've had any discussions about our feelings and our plans like girls do."

"I wouldn't have spent all of this time shagging you and showing you how important you are if I didn't love you -- just like you love Abby and Becker," Danny pointed out. "And I definitely have _plans_ for you when we get home."

Connor was quiet for a long time, laying with Danny and watching the anomaly, knowing that they should get moving if they were going to make it home.

"Do you think she found a way home?"

"She has to have."

"What if she didn't?"

"Then we'll start opening anomalies all over the damned place until we find her." Danny's voice was firm in that. "If she didn't get home on her own, then we'll make sure we bring her home."

Connor nodded. "Danny?"

"Yeah, Connor?"

"Don't you think we should probably put some clothes on if we're going home? It would be really awkward to walk through an anomaly in nothing but our skin. What if Lester is there?"

Danny couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, Connor. We should probably get dressed and get our stuff together so we can go home."

After one more hard and lengthy kiss, the two of them rolled to their sides and began the process of getting their clothes on and gathering all of their supplies. This included all of the notes and the gadgets Connor had created in the time they had been here. With their packs a lot fuller than they had been two years ago, Connor and Danny started the climb down from their mountain cave to the forest floor below.

Once they had gotten down to the forest floor and were standing in front of the anomaly, Danny had to take a steadying breath. After two years, was this really happening? Were they finally about to return home? Would Abby be there? Would all of their friends still be there or would they have moved on after so long?

“Danny?”

He was pulled from his thoughts by Connor’s quiet voice. “Yeah?”

“We should go. We don’t know how long this one will stay open.” Or even if it would be the right one to take them home, though he wasn’t about to voice that worry.

Danny nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go home, then.” He gave Connor a faint smile before the two of them stepped through the anomaly together.

 

They stepped right into chaos. They had barely moved from one time to the other when there was shouting and guns being held on them. It wasn’t quite the welcome home that either one of them had expected. After the third time they were told to get down and a gun was pushed in Connor’s face, Danny’s already fraying temper started to snap.

“I promise you that if you point that at him one more time, I’m going to ram it down your pretty boy throat!”

“Quinn, stop threatening the boys. They might take you seriously and then where would we be?”

“Headed somewhere where they could buy me a decent pint,” was Danny’s immediate response as he swung to smile faintly at Becker. “Well, time sure didn’t do you any favors, Becker. You’re still ugly as hell.”

That wasn't quite true, but it was an easy response. One thing hadn't changed. That was Becker and he was greeting him in a way that he always had.

He wasn’t sure which one of them moved first and he didn’t rightly care. He was just happy to be holding onto Becker and hugging him. After a few moments, he stepped back and Connor was taking a turn clinging to Becker. He wasn’t at all surprised when Becker pulled him back and the three of them just stood there for a long moment holding onto each other.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Danny said gruffly, seeing the shadows that had gathered beneath Becker’s eyes. He had never seen his friend look so drawn and exhausted. He was thinner, too. At least he felt thinner. No less muscular, just a bit trimmer than he remembered him being.

“Yeah, well, you know, it’s been pretty busy here, Quinn.” Becker’s smile was faint. “We’ve been trying to find you. We’ve been doing everything we could think of. We sent several missions into the future. We only recently figured out that you guys had probably gone into the past after a stop in the future.” Becker knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop the flood of words and the guilt that came with them. “We couldn’t get to you.”

“Hey,” Connor said quietly. “Hey, stop. We’re home now. It’s all right.”

Danny’s demeanor was starting to lighten more than it had in awhile and he pulled Connor closer to him. They were _home_. After two years of hell, they had finally managed to make it back home where they belonged. Everything was going to be all right now.

Then, Becker asked the question that brought all of their worlds crashing back down again.

“Where’s Abby?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

“There was an accident shortly after we managed to chase Helen into the past,” Danny started quietly as he stared down at his hands.

After the quick reunion with Becker, and introduction to the other field leader Matt Anderson, he and Connor had been immediately taken back to the ARC. They needed to be checked out by a medic and they wanted to reunite with the rest of their friends. They also only wanted to have to tell their story only once for right now. After being tentatively cleared by a medic and after they had both refused rather vehemently to be taken to a hospital for treatment or observation, the two of them had finally been ushered into Lester’s office.

That, at least, hadn’t changed. Lester’s office was still the official place to give or receive news.

“What kind of accident?” Predictably, it was Lester who asked the question and Danny took a moment to wonder if he was going to have to do paperwork over their return and Abby’s continued absence.

“Raptor attack.” At everyone’s shocked and dismayed reactions, Connor shook his head quickly. “No, she didn’t get eaten!” He paused. “Well, we don’t think so, anyway.”

“Connor.” Danny groaned. “What he means to say is that Abby wasn’t the one who was hurt in the raptor attack. The last time I saw her, she was definitely very much alive.”

“When exactly was that?” Becker forced the words out between stiff lips.

“Two years ago when she continued to pursue Helen.”

There was silence for a long moment and then Matt – whom Danny hadn’t realized was in the room – looked at him evenly.

“Abby Maitland went after Helen Cutter on her own and you let her?”

“Matt.” There was a clear warning in Becker’s tone. He had noticed the change in Danny when he started telling his story and he wasn’t about to let someone who didn’t even know him to question him or attack him. It had broken something in Danny to make Abby go into dangerous territory alone.

“Connor was hurt and unconscious after the attack,” Danny bit out. “I was the only one of us that was strong enough to carry him somewhere to safety. If Abby hadn’t continued on Helen’s trail, we would have lost her and the only chance we had to stop her from what she planned on doing. I was stronger, but Abby was faster.” Guilt laced his words. “I gave Abby my spare gun and convinced her to go. After what we had found out, the three of us agreed that Helen Cutter needed to be stopped no matter the cost.” He let out a breath. “She chased after Helen and I got Connor up a tree and into safety before the raptors woke back up.”

“She knew the risks,” Connor said softly, his hand beneath the table squeezing Danny’s leg in an attempt to offer comfort. “Helen had to be stopped before she could kill all of us.” He looked at Matt. “And all of you, too.”

Matt gave Connor a considering look. “What do you mean?”

“Site 333,” Danny said, shaking his head. “The barmy bitch was heading to Site 333 to kill everyone.”

Sarah drew in her breath. It had been one thing to think about what Helen might be planning, but to actually hear her suspicions confirmed was all together a different matter.

“Abby stopped her.” Becker’s voice was carefully controlled as he looked at Danny and Connor. “Abby stopped her and saved the world.”

“Of course she did,” Danny agreed. “Abby wouldn’t have let it end any other way.”

“If she managed to stop Helen, then why didn’t she come back with the two of you?” Jenny was leaning against the wall, trying to take everything in. Like the others, she was overjoyed to have Danny and Connor back with them, but there was still the pang of loss over Abby being missing.

“We think that like us she got trapped,” Connor continued. “The first anomaly we went through led to the Cretaceous and it closed not too long after we arrived there.”

“When Abby didn’t return after a few hours, I made sure Connor was somewhere safe and I went to look for her.” Danny’s eyes met Becker’s. “I tracked her in the direction that she had gone and when her tracks ended I knew that I had found where the second anomaly had been. There was nothing there and we stayed near there and kept looking for signs that an anomaly had re-opened and she come back, but she never showed up.”

“We kept hoping she managed to find her way back here because the alternative was just not something we wanted to think about.” Connor looked around the room at everyone. “Because, she had to have won, right? You’re all still here and so are Danny and I. So she had to have beaten Helen and stopped her from killing anyone. Right?”

 

 _It has been so long since I’ve heard any voice but my own. I’ve almost stopped talking completely because hearing only my voice echoing back at me makes me think that I’m losing my mind. It’s easier now to be silent most of the time. I guess when you only have yourself to talk to you fall out of practice speaking. Each time I was alone in my life, I still had animals to speak to and I wasn’t as completely alone as I am now. It makes it easier to hunt and follow the animals when they change grazing patterns if you’re not used to talking or making sounds. I’m getting awfully damn good at being completely silent and it scares me a little. If I fall out of practice with talking, will I forget how to communicate with other people when I get back home? If I get back home? Is it possible to permanently lose your voice because you haven’t used it in months or years? I bet Sarah would know the answer to that question. She and Jenny are the smartest women I know and I bet it would be something Sarah would have an immediate answer for._

 _God, I miss them so much._

 _According to the notes in these journals I’ve been keeping, it’s been a little over two years since I killed Helen and since I left Danny and Connor. Are they all right? Did they find a way back home?_

 _Did me killing Helen and getting trapped in this time and place do any good?_

 _Has Becker moved on?_

 _Has he let go of me and maybe thinks he’ll never see me again?_

 _The idea of him falling in love with someone else kills me, but the idea of him being heartbroken and hurting for this long over my loss is even worse. I want him to be happy. I want him to be able to know he’s loved. As much as I wish I was with him and that we hadn't been separated like this, I would never wish him to be alone and sad. He deserves to be loved for the amazing man he is._

 _If I could send him any kind of a message from here it would be to tell him that I love him and that I want him to move on with his life and be happy. I will never stop loving him with all of my heart, but I don't want him holding out hope for me to come back home._

 _By now, I think we all know that it's not ever going to happen. But if I had it to do all over again, I would. The safety of Becker and my friends and those I loved was worth everything I lost. I wasn't in time to stop her from killing anyone here, but I hope that I stopped her in time to protect those that I left behind._

 _I hope that some day, Becker will understand why I had to make the sacrifice that I did. I hope that one day, he can be proud of me and what I've done..._

 

Becker was sitting in a chair on his balcony holding onto a beer that he wasn't really drinking. Oh, ever so often he would remember that he was holding it and he would take a half-hearted swallow, but that didn't count as drinking. In the flat behind him, his two best mates were asleep in his spare bedroom. At least, he hoped they were asleep. The medic had only agreed to hold off on ordering them to the hospital if Becker promised that they would start eating properly and getting a lot of rest. They would have to go in to see the medics in a few days for all kinds of tests to diagnose their condition, but for now Becker had managed to gain them a few days to adjust to their surroundings and relax. He thought it only right that he brought them back to his place. The place that Abby and Connor had lived in had been packed up and the loft was rented as soon as Lester and the team managed to get their stuff out like the landlord wanted. As for Danny's place, well they had packed up all of his belongings, too. Only in his instance, the house ended up being sold by his ex wife when she found out that he was missing after doing undercover work. She sold the house, gave Lester half of the money and she hadn't been seen since.

So, after the first round of debriefing was completed, Becker had insisted that they stay with him. It wasn't like he didn't have the room. He had purchased a new flat the day before the three of them had gone through the anomaly. He had wanted it to be a surprise for Abby. Their own flat. A master bedroom, a good size guest room and another bedroom that was only slightly smaller. There was a room for all of her books and manuals and studies for her experiments and there was a place for the animals that she was always getting attached to.

He had been planning to show her the flat at the same time he asked her to marry him.

Only that bloody bitch Helen ruined everything by deciding to wipe out humanity because she didn't like the way evolution was going or what she had helped the future to do. So because she was barmy and wanted to destroy the world, the people he loved had been faced with no choice but to go after her. In the task of saving the world and all of the lives in it, they had lost Abby.

"It's not right and it's not fair, Abby," Becker murmured softly, not wanting the men sleeping in the other room to hear him. "You should be here with me, starting a new life together. You should be here, with them, so we can all take care of you and the haunted looks in their eyes wouldn't get worse every time they thought of you or tried to talk about you. Danny looks like a shadow of himself and he's eaten up with guilt that he gave you the order to go on after her alone. I don't blame him, you know. I don't blame you, either. With what she was planning to do, you guys had no choice. You weighed the happiness of a small group of people against the lives of several billion people." He took a deep breath and there were tears starting to slide down his cheeks as he looked down at the floor. "You made a hard decision, Abby my girl. I love you and I'm proud of you. But oh god, Abby. I miss you so fucking much." He swallowed, shaking his head. "It was supposed to be only a few hours. You weren't supposed to be gone for over two years. I need you, Abby my girl. I need you to come back. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep going here if you're gone."

"She's lost, not dead," Danny's hoarse voice preceded him out onto the balcony so that he could sit and watch everything around them and beneath them. "We're going to find her and bring her home where she belongs. I believe she is still alive wherever she ended up trapped and we'll locate her."

"How, Danny? How are we going to find her? It's been two years and we don't know how to get an anomaly open to the time she's trapped in."

"You found us, didn't you?"

"That was a lucky coincidence with the anomaly being the right one to bring you back here. It opened just as randomly as any others that we deal with here."

"If Connor can figure out how to fix the artifact Helen broke, he may be able to find the right coordinates to where Helen led her to and we'll go there."

"Sarah said that Helen shattered it and that Connor isn't sure if he can do enough to make it work like it did before."

"Connor can make it work, Becker. I know he can. He spent almost two years making different gadgets and doing experiments that helped make our lives a little better than hell." Danny's voice was full of confidence in his lover. "He'll fix it and we'll use it and everything will come back to being like it's supposed to be. She'll be home with us and all of us will be together where we belong."

"I just want her to come home, Danny," Becker whispered. "I feel like a part of me is dying without her. The longer she's gone the more it hurts to just get through the day. I get my hopes up only to feel them crash back down again every day we get disappointed and I come back home to be alone and feel another part of me breaking."

"You're not alone, Becker," Danny said gently. "You're never alone. You have friends in Sarah, Jenny and Lester. You have the concern and respect of your men. You have me and Connor. You're not alone. You just have to see past the broken and see if the shards you're holding onto are too sharp to help put you back together again. Because when Abby comes home, you'll need to be put together."

"What do you mean?"

"It's been two years," Danny pointed out, running a hand through his hair. "For two years, Connor and I lived in hell, but we had each other to rely on and get us through and keep us from losing our sanity. Abby has only had herself to rely on and when she comes back, I guarantee she's going to be damaged and you need to fix your own damages in order to help her put hers into order."

Becker sighed and remembered his beer again, taking a short drink. "Nothing has made a whole lot of sense in the time you've been gone, Danny. We really did try everything we could think of in order to find you. Six months of missions into the future before Sarah got the idea that you were all somewhere in the past." He shook his head. "We had been looking in the wrong direction all of the time and we had no idea that we were. The last thing we knew, she was in the future and that was where the three of you had gone."

"I am sorry about that, mate," Danny's voice was remorseful. "But once we realized what she was going to do, we didn't have any time to come back and tell you. Time was of the essence if our entire species wasn't suddenly going to die."

"I know that you guys didn't have time and in that position, I would have done the same thing."

"And if the damn anomalies hadn't closed we would have been back a long time ago -- with Abby."

Becker nodded, taking a deep breath. "Do you think she killed her?"

"Who, Abby?" And the slight nod of Becker's head, Danny nodded, too. "Yeah, I think Abby killed Helen. We knew going in that one of us was going to have to. But after the raptor attack, the only logical choice was Abby. She could run faster than I could and she could track quicker than I could, as well."

"It couldn't have been easy for her to kill someone. Not even someone like Helen."

"No, I highly doubt it was easy for her. That will just be another one of those damages that we have to repair when she gets home."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Three years of exile and she had stopped talking altogether. It didn’t make sense to keep trying to speak and remember words from home when there was no one to hear or understand her. She had gotten used to the silence from herself and then came to understand each of the sounds that surrounded her.

She still did her best to avoid the Australopiths that she would come across because she wasn’t sure how long their memory was. However, when she did come in contact with any of them, she started to understand enough signs and sounds from them to communicate very carefully. She didn’t want to cause them distress or make them think she was going to attack them in any way.

For the longest time she steered clear of any of them she heard or saw tracks from. She thought that it was for the best, at first. Not only did she that it was a good survival instinct after what Helen had done to one of the family groups, but also she could hear Nick’s voice in her head sometimes. He was always warning her to be careful with contact and to preserve the fossil records so there were no unanswered questions years from now when scientists studied the sites.

Sometimes, though.

Sometimes she wanted to tell the voice in her head to sod off and shove the bloody fossil record. Archaeologists and the fossil record didn’t factor in anomalies and people getting trapped somewhere they didn’t belong because they were trying to save humanity and possibly the planet. The fossil record didn’t take into account someone from modern times having to find ways to survive in the far past until they could get home. The damn fossil record didn’t have any concept of someone losing everything.

Abby’s wandering thoughts caused her to miss a step in the bluff she was trying to climb over and she felt herself falling sideways. She scrambled for purchase, trying to find some kind of crevice to dig her fingers into or the roots of something to stop her descent, but there was nothing of the kind that she could find in the few seconds that it took for her to fall.

She hit the ground hard, causing a sharp wordless cry to come from her lips. She lay there for a few moments, trying to do a quick inventory of her injuries. She didn’t think that anything was broken, well, as far as she could tell from lying prone on the ground. She took a deep breath and tried to sit up, but pain swept through her head and shoulder causing bile to rise in her throat. She swallowed the nausea, trying to see how bad she was hurt.

One thing was for sure, though, she couldn’t just stay down here like this. She would be an easy meal for any carnivorous predator that caught her scent. Injured as she was, she wouldn’t last long in a fight with anything.

She managed to get to her feet, but the world swam around her. She had at least a minor concussion. She raised her hand to touch her head and groaned as pain moved through her shoulder. It made sense, though. She had landed on her shoulder before she hit her head.

At least, that was what she thought had happened. She had been trying to twist so as not to break her neck when she hit the ground. Apparently, it had worked. She could move her shoulder only barely, but at least she could still feel everything in her body – even if a lot of it was due to pain, now.

She’d willingly take the pain over paralyzing herself out here where there was no hospital and no medical care that was for damn sure.

Feeling something on her face, she reached her uninjured hand to her head and her hand came away sticky with blood. Hurt was bad, but bleeding was even worse. She had to find somewhere safe to take shelter so she could stop the bleeding. The blood would attract a predator in no time, so she needed to get to a safe haven.

She needed to find shelter near water because she didn’t know how long she might need to deal with the head injury.

Those were her last thoughts as the world swam out of focus and everything went dark.

 

When she became aware of her surroundings again, she could swear that she was moving. Everything felt like it was on fire, but there was something holding her arms against her sides. Had she broke her arms when she fell again and she just couldn’t feel them? She swallowed past the pain and opened her eyes, only to blink for a moment.

The eyes that met hers weren’t human – though she knew that one day they would be. She gazed up at a face that she thought she recognized from one of the few Australopiths she had interacted with over the last few months or year. She could hear others of his clan moving around them, and then realized with a start that he was _carrying_ her.

When she tried to turn her head, he made a sound of disapproval. He didn’t sound angry or like he was going to hurt her, but obviously, he didn’t want her to move. She would have been curious about how they had found her and why they were carrying her away, but the pain flared and she blacked out again.

 

The next time she opened her eyes it was because she felt water on her head and on her face. When she couldn’t see immediately, she made a sound of distress, afraid she had fallen into a river or something while she was unconscious. She struggled, but felt herself being firmly held down. She could hear herself making sounds of fear and worry – even if they were wordless. In response, something was lifted off of her face and she blinked from the sudden glare of sunlight.

Another face was peering down at her and it was a different member of the Austropalith group. This one was female and she was holding a bunch of wet leaves in one of her hands. The female shook the leaves, dunked them in the water and then pressed them to her face again. It took her a few tries, but Abby finally realized that the other female was trying to get her to chew or suck on the leaves.

Water.

They were trying to get her to drink water and the best way they could think of to do it had been to soak leaves from the trees in the nearby river she could now hear clearly and press them against her lips.

 _They were taking care of her._

For some reason, when they had found her injured, they had brought her to the river and they were taking care of her. She wasn’t sure why they had decided to do this, but she was amazed and touched by their concern for a creature that wasn’t one of them.

As she sucked on the leaves to get the moisture into her body that she needed, she felt fingers moving carefully through her hair. Even though she didn’t understand what they were saying to each other, she could feel their concern for her injuries – as well as their curiosity over the way she looked and how she was different than what they were used to.

Different, but there were obviously things they realized they had in common with her since they were going through such great lengths to help her.

These were the people she had lost everything to protect and as she lost consciousness again, she felt even closer to them than she had before. Before, she was saving them because they were her ancestors. Now, she was glad that she had because they were more than just her ancestors. They were people and they were amazing. They were everything that was right about humanity’s existence.

It took her some days before she was able to move on her own and in that entire time, the family group never left her. She was cared for like she was one of their own. A child in their eyes, for sure, even with how old she was in her world. She was injured and vulnerable and instead of leaving her to be killed and eaten, they had brought her to their territory and were taking care of her.

They brought her berries and plants to eat and she discovered that if it was in small pieces, she could eat the raw meat that they offered her. Her body needed the protein and nutrition that the meat supplied her and she began to get used to eating it raw – though she amused them endlessly when she would clean the meat in the water to get all traces of blood off of it. They weren’t at the stage of evolution where humans discovered fire and cooking yet, and she wasn’t about to change history in such a major way.

She spent a great deal of time watching them and interacting with them as best as she could. She learned a little of the way that they communicated and she was able to duplicate some of the signals and sounds that they used.

The first time they saw her cry, though, she gave them reason for alarm.

She hadn’t been aware of the tears at first. She had gotten lost in her thoughts while working on cleaning some kind of skin with them. (She refused to feel guilty for teaching this group how to use stones as tools for things. They had saved her life and this was the best way she could think of to repay them for that kindness. The bloody fossil record could just sod off where this family group was concerned in her eyes.)

She was scraping at the skin with the edge of a sharp rock when she thought about how much Sarah would have enjoyed being here and getting to know these creatures. Connor would have loved it, too. She didn’t realize she was crying until one of the family with her made high keening noises and started trying to press something against her eyes.

She wasn’t allowed to move from the shelter for the rest of that day and had to lay quietly with leaves covering her eyes. The family – her family – had apparently thought that something was wrong with her eyes and that the tears were another type of blood. Blood they were all too familiar with, tears, not so much. She had no way to get them to understand the difference, so in the end, it was just easier for her to obey their physical and vocal insistence that she lay down and keep the leaves over her eyes until they decided that she was capable of moving around with them again.

Of course, since she didn’t have anything else to do except lie there, it gave her mind plenty of time to think about things she didn’t particularly want to…

… _like the feel of Becker holding her close to him when they were together in his bed or hers. Or the way Connor’s face lit up when he discovered some new scientific gadget. The way Danny smelled when he hugged her_ …

Thoughts, which in turn, made her feel extremely guilty. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her best friends in that way. It was okay to think about Becker like that because until all of this had happened with Helen, he had been _hers_. He had been hers and she had been _his_ , so thinking about him in a physical way was permissible. Danny and Connor had never had that kind of relationship with her, so she shouldn’t have been thinking of them in such a way. It wasn’t right and it was disloyal to Becker.

There were several things that people probably could call her and had in her past, but one thing she wasn’t was disloyal. Whether you had her heart or her friendship – or both – she had always been incredibly loyal. Some would have said almost blindly so. She had never once – ever – considered cheating on Becker, so why now was she thinking of her other two friends in such a way?

She tried to sit up, but she was pushed gently, but firmly, back down. She knew it was useless to protest when they were in their caregiver mode, so she allowed herself to be pushed back down. Once she did that, something was slipped gently beneath her head and she felt one of them place something against her mouth. She had apparently not eaten enough for their liking today and they worried that her leaking eyes would make her weak. She wasn’t hungry, but dutifully she opened her mouth to eat what they were feeding her. The texture was like a mushroom and since she was used to them here, she chewed it and swallowed. After they fed her a few more of them and gave her water, they left her to rest.

She really couldn't call it a normal kind of resting. She could feel herself coming in and out of sleep and she could hear the movements of the family group around her, but soon she wasn't even aware of them. She felt ill and everything inside her seemed to be trembling. It was when she realized that she couldn't feel her hands or her legs that she just closed her eyes and let herself be carried away.

 _When her eyes opened again,the scene she found herself in was nothing like she had expected._

 _"Becker? Danny?" Her voice came out in a low questioning tone, but there were no words. All that escaped was a tone that she couldn't turn into words. The power of speech had deserted her a long time ago._

 _The two men that were on the bed turned and as one, they reached for her. Her hands had barely touched theirs when she felt another body press against hers from the back. The gentle lips along her neck could only belong to Connor. That was the only one that made sense since Danny and Becker were pulling her towards them and onto the bed._

 _"Don't be afraid, Abby my girl," Becker murmured, pulling her down between him and Danny. "Everything's all right. You're right where you belong -- with the people that love you."_

 _Abby made a confused noise in her throat, looking around her at the three men that were all looking at her with love shining in their eyes._

 _"I know, love," Danny said, dipping his head to kiss along the curve of her neck. "You're not sure what's happening or even if any of this is real. But for right now, it's real."_

 _Abby whimpered, her eyes turning to look at Becker in question as she felt a set of fingers that weren't his stroking the inside of her thigh. She shivered at the touch, reaching for Becker, to get him to tell her what was happening._

 _"Relax, Abs," she heard Connor say before she felt his lips along the lower part of her back. "Don't worry about anything right now and just let us take care of you."_

 _A finger slid inside her and she couldn't help the moan that came from her throat -- even as Becker pulled her face to his and kissed her deeply. It was a hungry kiss and it was a kiss of possession. She pressed her body towards him, one hand running down his chest until she felt his erection in her hand. She squeezed gently, and was rewarded by a groan from her boyfriend._

 _To her surprise, though, Becker smiled and moved her hand, stroking her arm as he pushed her onto her back. "As much as I love your touch and the way you can get me ready to lose myself with just a stroke of your hand, this isn't about me right now. This is about you."_

 _"And what we're going to do to you," Danny added as he ducked down to take one of her breasts into his mouth. She arched up as his lips tugged at her nipples. He did that for a moment before letting go and looking into her eyes. "We're going to show you everything, love. We're going to do so much to you that you won't know how to react to all of the pleasure that we're giving you."_

 _She felt fingers questing along her ass and she squirmed slightly. Her thoughts were all jumbled and confused. These three men, her boyfriend and her two best friends were telling her that all three of them were going to shag her quite thoroughly. This was nothing that she had ever thought about and she certainly had never expected to be given such attention by three men that were so close to her._

 _As if he could hear her thoughts -- and long before she had disappeared into the past Becker had usually been able to tell what she was thinking -- Becker leaned down and kissed her again before he moved back. Smiling, he met her eyes as he reached down to curl his own hand around his cock and stroked it lightly. Abby whimpered, watching him. When Becker saw how her eyes were trained on him, he gave her a grin before bending over her and running the tip along her lips. His touch was very light and he didn't allow his cock to rest against her lips. He barely brushed it against her mouth, smiling at the want that was filling her eyes._

 _"You want this, don't you love? You want me to bury myself deep in your throat and watch you as you work my cock with your mouth." Abby moaned softly and he grinned, brushing against her lips again. He knew what it did to her when he talked like this. He also knew that one of her favorite things to do was to use her mouth on him. "Don't worry, love, you will. I plan to make you work your mouth a great deal tonight. But, Danny and Connor are going to work on you, too." Abby's sudden gasp and shudder made him grin again. "Ah. I see that Connor has started using his fingers on your gorgeous arse." When he watched her eyes widen, he nodded. "Oh yes, love. We have you right where you belong and all three of us are going to show you that you're ours and that we love you no matter what."_

 _While he was talking, Abby felt her legs spread apart and the next thing she knew, Danny had thrust inside her with only a soft warning. She arched up against him, her throat convulsing as she tried to speak. Good. Oh god, Connor and Danny were making her feel so good. She tried to gather her thoughts, but it was hard when she was getting stroked and caressed by Connor's fingers and Danny's cock. Finally she managed to look up at Becker again, a clear want shining in her eyes._

 _He smiled softly. "I love you, Abby my girl." He leaned closer, brushing her lips with the tip of his erection and Abby opened her mouth, reaching for him..._

...only to wake up on the floor of a cave spitting out the wet leaves she had caused herself to choke on when she inhaled deeply.

She curled on her side, misery sweeping through her. It was a dream, nothing more. Or, maybe not quite a dream as she thought about the last thing she had eaten before sleeping. A hallucination, then. A very real hallucination caused by a mix of the mushrooms and berries she had been fed. A hallucination that made her feel even more alone than ever before.

Her choking had alerted her caretakers and they were immediately there, cleaning off her face and smoothing her hair back. She saw concern in their eyes and for a moment, she was very confused. She looked past one of them to see that the shadows cast by the sun had changed position from where they were the last time she had taken note of them. How long had she been like that?

She made a sound that she had learned and pointed at the sky, then pointed at herself, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, some of the group were communicating among themselves and finally one of the females stomped on the ground three times. What she met was clear to Abby. The night had come three times while she slept.

Another of the females brought a handful of wet leaves and placed them against Abby's lips, wanting her to drink. The water helped and Abby realized that she hadn't had enough to drink. From the faces of the family group, she had been ill. That's why they were wetting her face and making sure she sucked on the leaves.

She had been ill. That would explain why her body felt so wrung out and weak. She wasn't sure what had caused her to take ill, but it was clear that her Austropalith family hadn't understood her illness, either.

While the being ill explained away the condition of her body, but it certainly didn't explain the reason she had experienced such a vivid hallucination of Becker, Danny and Connor all making love to her at the same time. It didn't make any sense and she had never dreamt of anything like that before.

So why did the loss of that hallucination feel painful bordering on despair?

 

 _...it scares me. I think that I may be seriously losing my mind. Ever since the dream I had when I was so ill, I keep having dreams like that. The dreams are always a lot of the same thing I hallucinated when I was ill. Only, they seem to increase in intensity depending on how I've been feeling that day. Sometimes I'm almost afraid to go to sleep because I can tell that I'll have one of those dreams. It makes me feel guilty that I don't only dream of Becker. Oh, I have plenty of dreams where it's just the two of us -- but I'm also having dreams of the four of us. It doesn't seem right that I should be doing that. I feel like I'm cheating on Becker in my dreams. I know that it's insane. After three years, he has to have moved on and found someone else. After three years, he must have gotten over me. But I can't stop the guilt I feel when I realize that I've had another one of those dreams. He may no longer be mine, but I still consider myself his. He still has my heart and my soul. Granted, I have feelings for Danny and for Connor, too, but I was with Becker and I would never have done anything to hurt him or betray him. I never would have cheated on him or made him doubt how much I love him. I would especially not do anything with his two best mates. What kind of person would that make me if I could do something like that to such a wonderful and loving man like Becker? I would never be unfaithful to him. Never._

 _Or at least, I would only do it in my mind, apparently. Faithful in body, unfaithful in my mind._

 _It's almost winter here now, I think. It's gotten colder and the nights are getting longer again. My Austropalith family have moved on to seek someplace to hibernate for the winter, I believe. They were spending a lot of time gathering up food and supplies. I showed them how to carry water it the hollows of some stones and made sure they had the weapons we had made together. Yeah, the weapons are not normal for this time period or even for them at their stage of evolution, but I had to do something to give them a better chance. They took care of me and adopted me into their clan and I want them to have a fighting chance with anything they come across that's bigger than they are. Cutter and Stephen would turn in their graves for me messing up the archaeological records like this, but they're not the one that was hurt and dying and that was taken in and cared for by these creatures. I owed them the best that I could do with what we have hear to help them. They have spears made with sticks and blades made with sharp rocks. While they made their kind of spears, I made mine. I didn't dare give them my blades for weapons as that would be even harder to justify later. But they seemed happy with what I showed them and none of them tried to take my spears from me. The hilts of two of my knives were beyond repair, so I used them as the blades for my new spears. One spear is taller then me and one is a few inches shorter. They wobble when I throw them, but that's to be expected. I've never had to make my own weapons before. The first few times I used them, I had to keep repairing them, but by now I have developed a way to keep the blades on the sticks no matter how hard they hit._

 _I'm going to be alone again. They left to hibernate and I'm following some of the herds south. Surprisingly enough, the cave I was staying in before I got hurt was undisturbed. Most of my supplies were still there. The only thing that wasn't there that I desperately need is a change of clothes, but it's not like I expected to need a change of clothing when we started all of this three years ago. I can only do so many more repairs on these before I'm wearing little more than shorts and bra. I am not going to start running around the Pleistocene looking like some bad film version of an amazon. I've learned to make tools and other things out here in the last three years. I'm pretty sure that I can figure out how to sew the shreds of blankets together or even a skin or something to make sure that I stay covered up. If I'm going to live out the rest of my life in this damn place and then die here, I am not going to end this existence looking like some tramp in a bad science fiction movie. I do still have my pride even if I have nothing else here..._


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

_Three years._

It had been three years to the day that his friends had gone missing. Three years since the last time that he had seen the woman he loved more than his own life. Three years since he had let her walk away and into a dangerous situation without him.

The pain of missing her never got easier.

Tonight, he sat on his balcony, not paying any attention to the rain that was falling down. There were more than a few beer bottles around his feet. This night never got any easier for him. Granted, he was so relieved that Danny and Connor had made it back home last year, but Abby was still lost out there somewhere.

Somewhere that they couldn’t seem to find a way to get to.

Not to say that they hadn’t tried. Connor and Sarah had created experiment after experiment and they just couldn’t seem to get to the exact same place in time that Abby had disappeared into after she continued chasing Helen. They were trying to narrow down the timeframe to where Helen’s coordinates had been directed to, but it was still a lengthy process. Connor said that they could narrow it down to about a period of a thousand years – but even that margin was difficult.

They kept trying, though.

In fact, they all kept trying. Trying to find Abby, trying to make sure everything was running normally. Trying to live their lives as if there wasn’t something important missing from them.

There was a lot of _trying_ going on.

Becker couldn’t admit it out loud to anyone, but he was awfully damn tired of _trying_. He was even closer to losing hope entirely. He held on because everyone expected him to and they needed him to. He pretended to be strong because that was what he had always done. That was his job and how he took care of these people that cared about him. They relied on him and leaned on him as their strong port in this storm that Helen Cutter had caused. He pretended to hope because that was what he did. He propped them up and barked encouragement at them to not give up on hope, when at the same time he was slowly falling apart inside.

It was getting harder and harder for him to keep going; harder still to make himself go into work every day. Everywhere he went and every place he looked, he saw ghosts of Abby. It was becoming too much for even him.

Which had brought him to sitting on his balcony trying to get himself drunk in the rain on the third anniversary of her disappearance.

He couldn’t do this any longer, he didn’t think. He had tried to hold on, god knew he had tried, but after three years, he was out of strength and he was out of hope. He just wasn’t strong enough to keep going on like this.

“I’ve tried, Abby my girl,” he spoke into the rain. “I’ve tried so hard to hold on and stay strong for the day that you finally came back to me. I just don’t think that I can do this any longer. I believe you’re still alive – god I hope you are, at least – but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t believe that I’m ever going to see you again. I let you down once and here I am about to do it again.”

He could feel the tears begin as he fingered the ring that was on his hand. He had bought one for her, too, but he had never gotten the chance to give it to her.

“I’m leaving here, love. I just can’t stay here any longer. It hurts too much. There’s too much of you here in every direction I turn. That’s not your fault and I wouldn’t change the time we were allowed to have together for anything. No matter how it all seems to have ended, I would never have given up what we were lucky enough to have together at one time.” He took a deep breath and then took a long drink from the bottle in his hand. "I'm leaving, Abby my girl. I'm leaving the ARC, I'm leaving England, I'm leaving it all. I'm going back on active duty with the military." He swallowed, tears moving down his face. "I'll never love someone as much as I love you, but I just can't live like this anymore. The changes of hope to despair is killing me and I know that you would never want that for me, just like I would never want it for you." His breath hitched. "I love you so much, Abby, but I can't go on like this. It's been three years and there's not even been a sign of you no matter where we've searched. I just have to force myself to admit that I've lost you. I should never have let you guys go after her without me. I promised that I would always protect you and keep you safe, and I failed so badly in that."

He slid out of his chair and landed on his knees on the balcony, resting his head against the bars of the bannister as he let the tears fall.

He shook his head, not feeling the fact that the rain had gotten colder. "I'm leaving the house for Danny and Connor. After everything that's happened, they deserve and need this place more than anyone on the market. I bought it for you and if you can't have it, then they can." He ran a hand through his hair. "None of it means anything without you, Abby my girl. None of things I've done in the last few years, none of the plans I was making. Nothing means a damned thing with you trapped in a place where we will never be able to find you again. It's killing me, Abby. Not knowing how you are and realizing that I really probably am never going to see you again. I love you so much, will always loved you, but I can't do this any longer. It's killing me and you would never handle seeing what I've become. You would tear yourself apart with guilt that isn't yours."

Becker let his drop against the railings as he let the flood of tears break free. He had tried to be strong and he had tried to hold everything together and hold all of his emotions in. He was supposed to be stoic and be everybody's pillar of strength, but he was drained of strength. He just couldn't hold it together any longer.

"Oh, Becks," a soft and gentle voice said as arms went around him and pulled him to his feet. "Come on love, we need to get you inside and get you dried off." He looked around at all of the empty bottles littering the patio and he winced. How had no one known how fragile their soldier had become? How long had this been going on right under his and Danny's noses? Connor felt a rush of sadness and guilt. They had been paying so much attention to being back and getting back into work that they hadn't noticed how their best mate was breaking apart inside. He must have been the strong one for everyone while all of them were gone and that hadn't changed when he and Danny had returned. They should have realized that he was losing his strength and his hope. They had returned, but no one knew the fate of Abby. They said she was alive because they couldn't deal with the alternative. However, for Becker, not knowing after three years and trying to deal with it alone had to be breaking him even further.

"Danny," Connor called out softly as he managed to get Becker into the house and shut the sliding glass door behind him. "Danny, Becker needs us -- and a few towels."

Danny came out of the living room and stared for a moment. "What the hell happened to him?"

"He's falling apart, Danny. I don't know how much he's had to drink or how long he's been out there, but I'm betting that he went right out there as soon as he got home from work tonight."

Danny winced. "You mean right after the Minister declared Abby dead and lost."

Connor nodded. "It must have been the last straw on a back that was already near breaking. He's been so stoic and strong, trying to hold onto the hope that Abby would one day come back like we did. He probably spent the last few years being everybody's strength and when we returned he went into protector mode for the two of us, as well."

"Oh, Becker," Danny said sorrowfully. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"My job to take care of you and I failed all of you," Becker suddenly said from where he was standing and making a puddle of water on the floor.

"No," Danny said quietly. "You didn't fail us, Becker. You didn't fail us at all. You weren't with us -- and thank god you weren't -- because you were here protecting our loved ones. If you hadn't been here to protect them, we would never have been able to keep focused and do what needed to be done."

"I'm sorry that we lost her, Becks," Connor said in a choked voice. "You have no idea how sorry and how you must hate us for coming home when she didn't."

Becker just stared at them with shock in his blood-shot eyes. "Hate you? No, I don't hate you. I could never hate you. God, I was so relieved to see that you were home and in one piece. Yes, I was upset that Abby wasn't with you, but that wasn't your fault." He looked from Connor to Danny. "Have you guys been thinking I hate you for the last year?"

Danny shrugged, but Connor nodded. "Pretty much, yeah. I mean, you made sure we were taken care of and you moved us into your new home and helped us try to adapt and then you started pulling away. Withdrawing into yourself and we thought maybe you resented us being here when Abby was lost."

"That wasn't it, Connor. That wasn't it at all." He swallowed hard. "I withdrew because I didn't want to be disloyal to Abby in your eyes -- and I didn't want to do anything that would complicate or mess up what the two of you have. I had to pull away because I was getting too close to the two of you and I knew that I needed to leave you alone."

"Leave us alone?" Connor's eyes were full of confusion. "But why?"

Becker looked ashamed and looked down at the floor, not meeting their eyes. "Because I couldn't get Danny's goodbye kiss out of my mind no matter how much time passed or what happened."

Danny looked at Becker for a moment, putting more thought into it than his next words might reveal. “Do you want me to kiss you again?”

Becker bit his lip, looked at Danny, nodded. “If Connor’s all right with it,” he said, his voice quiet. “I don’t want to muck anything up...”

“You need it, Becker,” Connor said gently. “Even if I didn’t want to see it, how could I begrudge you something you need?”

Becker looked at him, blinking in confusion. “You... you want to see him kiss me?”

Connor just nodded.

“And how can I tell him no?” Danny grinned before moving towards Becker and pulling him in for a kiss that had little to do in the way of gentle and everything to do in the way of reassurance. Reassurance that everything was going to be all right between them, that he wanted to kiss Becker again just as much as Becker had wanted to be kissed again.

Becker whimpered softly into the kiss, clutching at the front of Danny’s shirt with one hand and bringing the other hand up to touch the other man’s face cautiously at first and then with more certainty.

Connor had thought for a second that maybe he might feel a little jealous seeing this, even if it was something he wanted, but no. No jealousy. Just a strange sort of contentment and a stirring of desire. More than a stirring, truth be told. He moved forward, pressing against Becker from behind. “He’s a good kisser, isn’t he?” he murmured in Becker’s ear.

All Becker could do was whimper an agreement.

“A little secret?” Connor said, his voice still soft. “He’s an even better shag.”

The idea of being shagged by Danny made Becker’s knees go weak. Or maybe that was the alcohol. Either way, he found himself suddenly clinging to Danny and returning the kiss with a newfound ferocity.

Danny laughed against Becker’s lips. “Think he likes that idea,” he said to Connor.

“Think so, too,” Connor said, slipping a hand up under Becker’s wet shirt. “And we really should get him out of these wet clothes. They can’t possibly be any good for him.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Danny said, pulling back to start undoing Becker’s pants. “He’s going to get sick if he stays in these, and we don’t want that.”

“N-no, we don’t,” Becker managed to agree, kicking his shoes off. “Then I’d be utterly useless to the two of you.”

“You will _never_ be useless to us,” Connor said fiercely, tugging Becker’s shirt up. “Let us take care of you for a little while, Becks. Just a little while.”

Becker was torn. He didn’t want to be disloyal to Abby, but they didn’t seem to think it’d be cheating, and if they didn’t think it, then... oh, hell with the thinking. He shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside.

“Conn, take care of him for a moment,” Danny said, stepping back. “I need to get something.”

Connor moved in front of Becker, sliding a hand down Becker’s pants to wrap a hand lightly around the other man’s growing erection. “With pleasure,” he murmured, stroking gently at the same time as he used his other hand to push Becker’s pants and underwear down. “Believe me, with pleasure.”

Becker bit back a moan and shuddered against Connor’s hand. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Connor said, vulnerability creeping into his eyes now. “I want to, though. _We_ want to.”

“Good to know,” Becker said, letting out a moan. “Just wanted to make sure you knew.”

Connor could live with that. Becker wouldn’t have been Becker if he didn’t show concern for the other person.

“Well, rest assured,” he said, kneeling slowly. “I know and I appreciate the concern, but really, Becks, I want to be doing this right know.”

Becker whimpered and looked down at Connor, running a shaky hand through the other man’s hair. “This, too?”

“This, too,” Connor agreed with a smile before taking Becker’s cock lightly in hand again and leaning in to dart his tongue against the tip.

Becker let his hand tangle in Connor’s hair lightly. “God, you’re beautiful like this,” he whispered.

“What, on my knees and willing?” Connor grinned.

“Yes.”

That made Connor whimper. Instead of saying anything else, he turned his attention back to Becker’s cock and the way he’d been slowly taking it into his mouth.

Danny had come back to the room just in time to see Connor taking Becker into his mouth; distracted by the sight, all he could do for a moment was watch and bite back a moan. “Jesus, that’s perfect.”

Becker turned his head slightly, looking at Danny. The other man had removed his clothes in the time between leaving the room and coming back; anything Becker might’ve wanted to say went right out of his head when he realized that Danny was naked.

Naked and pressing up against him from behind, the next thing he knew. Pressing up against him at the same time Connor was working on him, and oh God they were going to kill him with this he just knew it.

“Wanted to do this right,” Danny said as he uncapped the bottle of lube and slicked himself up. “Nothing but the best for you, Becks.” He managed to set the bottle aside before he was pressing against Becker again. “You deserve the best.”

Becker just pressed back against Danny impatiently. “Please?” His voice wasn’t quite a whisper as he didn’t quite beg.

“I like hearing you say that.” Danny grinned, pushing forward slowly. “I could get used to that.”

At that moment, with Danny pushing inside him slowly and Connor working him deeper into his throat, Becker would have promised them anything. As it was, he wasn’t capable of actual speech so much as it was a keening whimper. He leaned forward slightly, bracing himself against the wall.

Danny rested his hands on Becker’s hips, controlling how fast he was entering him. He wanted to just drive himself into the other man without a thought, but this was the first time for Becker. He had to be gentle.

Well, reasonably so, at any rate.

Connor hummed around Becker as he deepthroated him. He couldn’t say he’d thought about doing this, exactly, but he couldn’t think of a thing he would rather be doing at the moment. And judging by the sounds the other two men were making, he was pretty sure they were in agreement.

“Fucking perfect,” Danny hissed as he thrust slowly. “You feel brilliant, Becks.”

“Not Becks,” Becker managed with what little coherent brainpower he had left. “Hilary.” If they were going to shag him, they were damn well going to call him by his first name.

“Hilary, then,” Danny agreed, pressing a kiss to Becker’s shoulder. “Our Hilary. We said we’d take care of you, didn’t we? And we are.”

“Uh-huh,” Becker agreed, bucking his hips against Connor’s mouth and then going still, afraid it’d been too much. Judging by the startled but very satisfied sound that came from Connor, though, he didn’t need to worry.

And that was the last time he was aware of anything much. The rest of it was just flashes -- Connor humming around his cock, Danny’s nails dragging sharply down his back. He refused to focus on anything for fear that it would all slip away and he’d be stuck with the aftermath of a dream.

“That’s it, Hilary,” Danny encouraged, his voice tight. “That’s it, love. Let go. You’re so close, we can tell.”

Connor nodded slightly in agreement, the slight movement doing the most interesting things to Becker’s nerves.

And it was those things that sent Becker over the edge feeling as though he were flying, moaning their names and pushing back against Danny, desperate for the other man to come -- desperate to know that Danny had enjoyed this, that it hadn’t been a pity shag.

Danny came right after, with a moan of his own and another sharp drag of his nails down Becker’s back, hard enough that Becker would have trouble moving for a few days.

“I... that...” Words. Becker knew what those were. Really he did.

“Yeah,” Connor agreed as he sat back, licking his lips and smiling cautiously.

“Thank you, both of you.”

Connor tensed slightly and fought it off. “For what?”

“For wanting to take care of me.” Becker gave Connor a very lazy, very sated smile.

Connor couldn’t help but relax. “I told you to let us take care of you.”

“I did, and you did,” Becker said, turning slightly to look at Danny and wincing slightly from the movement. “You did a number on my back, Quinn.” He gave the other man a teasing grin. “I fully plan on paying you back in kind someday.”

“I can’t wait.” Danny just grinned. Maybe there were things still to be settled between the three of them, and maybe there were still issues for the three of them, but for the moment everything was perfect.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

_Four years. I've been trapped in the Pleistocene for a total of four years, now. While I've gathered untold amounts of information that I'm sure Sarah and others at the ARC would find invaluable, I'm no longer convinced that I'll be alive to give it to her. I've managed to stay alive and survive in such a place for four years, but I honestly don't know how much longer I can keep going. Sometimes when I look at my reflection in the rivers and lakes, I hardly recognize myself any longer. I know that shouldn't matter, but the changes on the outside do reflect the changes of a person on the inside. I've lost a lot of weight and I haven't exactly been keeping up with the nutrition from my time. Out here, you eat what you can. Berries, leaves, meat, fungus, fish. You eat what you can find or catch and you can't afford to be choosy. My cheeks are thin and you can see all of the bones in my face. I'm not sure what I think of how I look now. I don't resemble the person that went through the anomaly four years ago. There are times that I barely recognize myself. Oh, I know that it's me, but I look nothing like the Abby Maitland who went off on a mission to save the world with her best mates._

 _Part of me is afraid that if anyone I loved were to see me now, they wouldn't be able to look at me. I look like someone who got was on some kind of insane workout regime. My cheeks are hollow and my skin is brown from the sun and from the layers of grime that no amount of freezing baths in lakes or showers in waterfalls seem to ever be able to clean off of me and believe me, I have tried everything I could think of. Sand, pine needles, lots of leaves. Nothing gets me as clean as I want to be. My arms and legs are thinner than they used to be and it's obvious that my body is mostly muscle where there is weight on my bones. Four years in this environment and I had no choice but to do whatever I had to do in order to survive._

 _I understand now the different changes that I saw in Helen every time she made another appearance in our lives. She went through so many different anomalies and had to find a way to survive each time or era she was in. She did this for eleven years. I've been here for four years and I know I have lost a little of my sanity already. I can't imagine what living this life for eleven years would do to a mind. That doesn’t make any of what she did right, but I can understand why she might have thought it was. Living like this would screw anybody up._

 _I thought I could be stronger than I am. I thought I could get through anything here and not lose my mind. I thought I could survive for however long I needed to in order to get through this. But I'm not strong like I wanted to be and if the people I loved back home knew how weak I ended up being, they would never want me around them again. I'd have to find somewhere else to go. They wouldn't want me at the ARC when they found out what I had done. Jenny and Sarah would be so disappointed in me. Lester would be disappointed that I wasn't as strong as he thought I was. Connor would be sad and not understand how I could have done this. Danny would be angry and would never speak to me again. And Becker... oh god. Becker would be disappointed in me and feel betrayed over my actions. He would hate me so much for this._

 _But sometimes, you need an escape from the way you're being forced to live. Sometimes you need help getting through one more night where the only companions you have are the ones that are hunting you or the ones that you are hunting in return. Hallucinogenic mushrooms work as a crutch to get me through some nights._

 _I know now that I'm never going to get home again. It's been four years. If Sarah had been able to track us down, it would have happened a long time ago. They're not going to find me and no one had the device that Helen used to open the anomaly to this era after she passed through the Cretaceous Era. They may have been able to trace us from the future site and therefore find Danny and Connor and get them safely home. I hope they got to them before what has happened to me happened to them._

 _I don't feel like a human being any longer. I feel like I have become some mixture of animal and human -- and I'm not even sure if you could call me human at all. I don't remember so many things any longer. I can't talk in my own language because I don't remember the words I used to use. I make sounds that are supposed to be me communicating, but it's not the same as talking. I've learned several hand gestures and stomps from each time I stay with my Austrapolith family. I feel more like one of them now than I do a human being._

 _It may actually be a good thing that I will never get out of here. I don't want any one I love to see me like this._

 _Helen Cutter managed to hold on to some of her human concepts and reactions -- so how come I haven't been able to?_

 _I think she may have been right about me. I may have been a lot like her -- but I guess I'm not as strong as she was because I don't think she would ever have ended up like I have after being in a place for only four years._

 _I'll never forget Becker or how much I love him. I'll never forget Danny or Connor, either. I just wish I had been more honest with how much they meant to me. That's one of my flaws in every relationship I have ever had -- friends or lovers. I don't let them know that they matter._

 _But I guess that it's all moot now..._

 

It was winter and she was out hunting when she came across the wolves. Oh, she had known for years that there were several wolf packs out here and up until now she had avoided coming into any close contact with them. Whenever she heard their distinctive howls and barks, she always made sure that she was going in the opposite direction of wherever they were moving to. This time, though, she hadn’t expected them. There had been no warning growls or the joyful barking of a pack at hunt or at play. No, what she heard this time was a soft whimpering and a half-hearted attempt at a snarl.

She almost tripped over the dying wolf and the young cub that had stayed by his mother’s side.

Carefully, she crouched on the ground a few inches away to see if she could help the mother wolf in any way – and immediately realized that there was nothing she could do. Something had ripped into her pretty thoroughly and she didn’t think the wolf was going to survive for very much longer. The blood in the snow helped paint a very clear picture that this particular animal didn’t have long to live.

The cub, on the other hand…

Abby tilted her head as she looked from the mother to the cub. A baby. He wasn’t very old and in all probability couldn’t yet hunt on his own. In fact, he probably only had his milk teeth. He was small, but his eyes were open all of the way, which meant he was at least able to see and hear what was going on around him.

He would never be able to survive on his own right now. Of that, she was sure. Therefore, she couldn’t just leave him here for another predator to find – and they would find him. Already she could hear scavengers starting to approach due to the lure of his mother’s bleeding.

Decision made, she reached for the wolf cub and grabbed him, wrapping him up in one of the skins she had around her shoulders. She could feel his ribs through his fur and knew she needed to get food into him soon. She cuddled him close and looked down at his mother. She wished that she could do something to help her or to make sure she knew that her baby would be taken care of. She had no doubt in her mind that the wolf had been injured while trying to protect her baby. Wolves of any kind were very protective of their young.

Looking into the wolf’s eyes, she knew there was _one_ thing that she could do for her. Abby backed away a few feet and put the wolf cub and the skin down on the ground. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her knife from the sheath at her side and approached the mother wolf again. She kneeled down next to her and reached to touch her head. The wolf snapped at her hand and Abby made a soft sound of pain as the teeth connected with her flesh.

What was one more injury on top of everything else? It wasn’t like she could fault the wolf for biting her. She was injured and now this strange creature had taken her baby from her side. If it was her, she probably would have bitten someone, too.

Of course, that meant that she now had to hurry even more. Her bleeding hand plus the wolf’s body would be a beacon to any predator in the area. She couldn’t fight right now – not with a fresh bite wound and a baby wolf that needed her care. Swallowing hard, Abby lifted her knife and then brought it down hard into the wolf’s body, puncturing the heart. The she-wolf didn’t even make a sound as she died. If she did, it wasn’t loud enough for Abby’s now sensitive ears to pick up on.

Abby stayed next to the body for a few moments, her hand resting on the fur as tears made their way down her cheeks. It had been so long since she had given in to tears that it felt strange to her. She had to get up and start moving, though. She had to get somewhere safe to clean out the bite and try to get the cub to eat something.

She pulled her knife out of the wolf’s heart and wiped it clean on her fur before putting it back in its sheath at her side. Taking another deep breath she got to her feet and went to where she had put the cub. It hadn’t moved from the skin and his bright eyes just stared up at her in curiosity. Sweeping him up, she held him close against her chest as she started to run.

 

It didn’t take her long to find her way to one of the rivers that she was used to following by now. She couldn’t say how many times she had followed these rivers as she migrated with the herds of plant eaters. Once she was there, she looked around for danger before she set the wolf cub down and then submerged her injured hand into the water. The icy water numbed the hand and Abby was able to probe it for dirt or the tips of any teeth. Once she was sure there was nothing in the wound to cause her even worse problems, she set about cleaning it thoroughly in the icy water. After she cleaned her hand, she rummaged in one of her packs until she came across the tattered remains of a t-shirt that she had long since started tearing up for bandages and rags. She wrapped the cloth carefully around her wound, using her teeth to tie off the knot firmly. When her wound was taken care of, she turned her attention to the cub she had rescued.

She carefully unwrapped him from the skin she had secured him in and examined him for wounds. To her relief, he didn’t seem to have any injuries. What was better is that he didn’t seem at all interested in biting her. In fact, he seemed quite content just to study her as intently as she was studying him.

The cub was dark gray but there were also streaks of red in his fur and she couldn’t help but to wonder at how he had gotten such coloring. She reached out to touch his fur and he just watched her. When she stroked his back gently, he made a little yip that sounded happy and Abby smiled at him as he licked her wrist.

It was the red in his fur and his intelligent blue eyes that made her start thinking of his name as Cutter. She had a feeling that her mentor wouldn’t have minded so much sharing his name if he could see the wolf she had saved.

 

 _…at least it wasn’t a dinosaur this time._

 _I hadn’t planned on keeping the wolf cub as my companion, but I guess he decided he had nowhere else he wanted to go. Believe me, I tried to get him to go back into the wild again after I fed him and got him to what should have been his normal weight for the age he was at. Well, the age I guessed he was at from the condition he was in when I found him and his mother. I tried taking him out and leaving him at different places after I made sure he was able to hunt – but he always found his way back to where I was staying. And even when I packed up and moved camp, he tracked me to wherever I went. He’s a very determined creature._

 _Just like his namesake._

 _He also doesn’t seem to matter that I don’t talk. I guess he doesn’t find it strange since he’s never been around humans enough to know that they are supposed to talk using actual words. He’s smart as hell, though. He understands the signals I give him and the sounds that I use to communicate with him and the Austropaliths that I’ve come across since finding him._

 _I had never seen Dire Wolves up close before – I always made sure to avoid them whenever I heard a pack hunting. However, I’m sure that I have never seen any wolf that is as beautiful as Cutter is and it’s not just because he seems to have become my constant companion. He’s got this amazing dark gray fur with red highlights in it and a red sock on one of his front legs. He’s getting so big, too. When he’s standing, he’s a little taller than my knees. I had always read in the books that Dire Wolves were long and stocky, but there was never any clear indication of their height that I can recall right now._

 _That’s bad, isn’t it? That I’m forgetting things? It’s happening more and more often that I realize I can’t remember things that used to come to my mind so effortlessly. Facts and figures that I used to just rattle off absently I know have to stop and think hard about and sometimes what I’m trying to recall just doesn’t come to my mind at all. That’s kind of frightening. Does that mean that I’m regressing to an evolutionary point before mankind had that kind of information? Did I not stop Helen in time and the Austropaliths that she did manage to murder did affect the future and this is what is happening to me as the future dies out?_

 _That’s a rather disturbing thought, isn’t it? That I didn’t save the future and instead of dying I’m slowly going backward on the evolutionary scale. I’m not even sure that such a thing has been heard of. Nick would have known the answer to that. Evolutionary Biology was his specialty and he would be able to tell me if that was possible and if that was what was now happening to me._

 _Of course, the other side of the fact that Nick would be able to answer that question is the knowledge that if Helen hadn’t killed Nick, none of this would be happening. I sometimes wonder how differently things would have gone if Nick had survived what Helen did._

 _But, does that mean I never would have been able to count Danny as someone close to me? Yes, we met him before Nick died, but he only became a part of the ARC after Nick was killed._

 _I don’t even know why I’m trying to figure all of this out now. It doesn’t make any difference to my reality:_

 _I’ve lost Danny just like I’ve lost Becker and Connor and all of the rest._

 _I AM NEVER GETTING HOME. NEVER._

 _I’ve tried so hard to hang on to hope that someone will find me or I’ll come across another anomaly, but it hasn’t happened. It’s been four years and I am no closer to finding my way home than I was the day that anomaly closed. I need to accept the fact that I’m going to live and die out here and nothing is going to change that._

 _If I had any common sense I would stop writing in these journals and just let myself forget and do whatever I have to in order to live and survive out here without continuing to believe that I’m ever going to see the people I love again. I should just stop writing and burn these damn things and forget about this desperate struggle to hold onto my sanity and any parts of a life that is no longer mine._

 _But I can’t. I can’t just destroy so much that could be considered field research in another time and place. The scientist in me balks at destroying all of this data. The human being in me just doesn’t know if she can keep doing this any longer._

 _Not that I know what will happen to all of this when I die. I guess I could dig a crevice in a cave wall somewhere and hide everything; and hope that nothing disturbs them and someone in the future finds them and can realize the importance of the knowledge. Maybe they could somehow find their way into the hands of the people I love. Let them know that no matter what happened to me, I never forgot about them or stopped caring about them._

 _Let them know that I believed their safety and well-being was so worth everything I lost and everything I’ve had to do since we went through that first anomaly with Danny and Connor._

 _How would that work? Could I hide something here in the past and make it marked for a specific person in the future? Would it be found and would whomever found it understand how important it was for them to make sure these things found their way into the hands of who they needed to? Would it prepare my loved ones in the future from having to go through the loss and the not knowing?_

 _Would it give them a better chance of finding me if they had something to use to date where it was buried?_

 _No, probably not that, but it would let them know what actually happened to me instead of being left to wonder. I know how much it has torn me apart not to know what happened to Danny and Connor after we separated. I know that it hurts not to know if I stopped Helen in time to save the people that mattered most to me in this life._

 _It hurts not to know how Becker is and if I managed to save at least him._


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
> 
> This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the _labor_ part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, **Enochiansigils** , for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. **Danceswithgary** made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank **Whuffle** for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank **Whuffle** and **Morrigans_eve** for adding their encouragement to that of **Enochiansigils** so that I could stick to writing this.

Abby was feeling listless and tired.

She hunted for herself and Cutter and prepared the extra meat to be dried in the best way she could with what existed in this time. There was plenty of food for them for the next few days, maybe even a few weeks if she stretched it out carefully so that she wouldn't have to go hunting again any time soon.

Not that game was scarce. It was quite the opposite, actually. There was plenty of game to hunt and there was a great deal of greenery and berries and mushrooms -- not to mention the fish in the rivers. Even with winter returning, she and her wolf companion were in no danger of starving. If Cutter got hungry before she did, she knew he would disappear to hunt on his own and then return when he had his fill.

Problem was, sometimes he dragged his bigger prey back to the cave and wanted to share it with her.

No, it wasn't the lack of hunting that had Abby wondering how long her current supplies would last her. It was something that most of the people who knew her would have been concerned about.

She had no energy and no drive to keep going like she had been.

She sat outside the cave, watching the stars appear as she rested her chin on her knees. Cutter was sitting on his haunches next to her and his head was against her legs as he kept watch on the valley below. There was a breeze blowing through the area, but except for the occasional absent-minded brushing of her hair out of her eyes, Abby didn't really notice the weather changing as she sat out there.

She was just too tired to keep this up any longer.

According to her notes and calculations, it was almost five years since she had been trapped here. Five years and there was no sign of a rescue mission or even of an anomaly. She had been all over this place and there hadn't even been a small anomaly or something up in the sky -- she had seen those before, after all. She had hiked, hunted, migrated with the herds and nothing ever changed.

She wasn't going to ever get back home.

Tears started sliding down her cheeks as she thought about that and as her mind finally accepted her fate. She had held on for so long and she just didn't have the ability to keep hope up any longer. She had tried, god knew she had tried, but even her stubbornness had its limits and she had finally reached that point. Her loved ones were never going to come. She accepted that now. Oh, she didn't doubt they had tried to find her as she knew them too well to think they hadn't tried. The problem that she understood with such a search was that the Pleistocene Era had covered so many years and so much territory. Unless they had gone through the exact same anomaly as she had, there was no way for them to locate exactly where in this time she was. They would try and they would experiment and they would program coordinates after coordinates, but she knew what would have eventually happened.

No matter how much they worked on finding her, Abby knew that they would be forced to give up and stop the work they were doing on locating her. They would never do that willingly and she knew that Lester would do his best to keep them at their work and searches.

However, as much as he wanted to be, there were times that Lester wasn't the last and final word on what happened with the ARC. No, that responsibility went to the Minister and he wouldn't let them _waste_ resources forever on searching for her. She knew how these things worked. She would be declared death, a person who died while performing a secret service to her country. (And the removal of Helen Cutter as a threat would certainly be considered as a great service to the Minister.) There would have been a funeral for those that loved her and then they would be forced to move on and return to their previous assigned ARC duties.

And that would be the end of it. Eventually, she would be forgotten. Her loved ones would continue to mourn her, but bit by bit, even they would finally let go of her and move on with their lives.

And that really was as it should be.

She accepted that.

After all, five years was a long time to keep holding out for a miracle. Most people would have probably given up long before now. She had just forced herself to hold on longer than normal because she was stubborn and she knew of the stubbornness of her loved ones back home.

She knew how determined Becker would have been to find all of them no matter what the cost or the time, but even he would have been forced to let go of her and proceed with his life.

Abby swallowed back the sob that rose in her throat. She would have wanted Becker to move on and find happiness in his life again. She wouldn't have wanted him to deal with the grief and loss for as long as she had been dealing with it. She wouldn't have wanted him to be eaten alive with grief and anger about what had happened to her. The idea of him being in any kind of pain tore at her heart.

She buried her face against her knees, crying silently into her legs. She had tried so hard to hold onto hope, but she just didn't have the strength for it any longer. She was just so tired and she couldn't live like this any longer. The disappointment and grief every day was beginning to crush her and she wasn't sure how much longer she could survive it.

Better to stop fighting against it and just give in to the fact that she was never going to get out of this place and time.

 

The next morning when the sun came up, Abby didn't leave the cave. She had plenty of food and water with her, so there wasn't much reason she could see to go out for the day. Everything she had done previously had been done all in the hopes of being prepared for when she found the way home. Now that she had become resigned to the reality of her situation, she didn't need to spend so much time being prepared.

She didn't get up from where she had laid down the night before, feeling herself drifting in and out of sleep. It wasn't a very restful sleep, but it was something that passed the time. Every so often, she heard Cutter leave the caves, but he always came back to lay down next to her.

She lost track of how many days went past her like that -- with her just laying listlessly on her pallet or sitting with her back against the wall as she retreated further and further into herself. There was no reason to get up from her pallet or stone seat and go about the cave as she used to, It wasn't like there was anything she could do that would change her circumstances. It would make the most sense if she just gave up and let herself fade away. She was pretty sure that starving herself to death wouldn't be the best way to test her strength. Using her knife on her didn't even enter her mind. She wasn't actively going to take her life, but she wasn't going to fight to survive and live like this. She would just stop fighting and let whatever happened to her happen. There was no getting around it. She was stuck in this place forever and she really didn't have the strength any longer to wait for a rescue that was never going to come.

She accepted that she wasn't going home again. She wasn't even going to battle against the ennui that was enveloping her so tightly and deeply. Five years was a long time to be in hell, but for those five years she tried her best to hold on to some kind of hope or plan to get back to her own time. Everybody had a breaking point and she knew that she was beyond hers.

After a few weeks, she ventured outside if the cave with all of her supplies packed up with her. She had to find a different shelter. She couldn't defend the labyrinth of caves any longer from predators with the weak and shaky condition that she was in.

She fully expected Cutter to run off on her because he would be able to tell that she was so obviously ill. But he never went too far away from her right side. There was something in the Dire Wolf that had decide Abby was his pack and therefore he would help her find food and stay with her so she wasn't attacked and she didn't die from what sickness she was fighting in herself.

Abby didn't know where they were going, but they were leaving the cave that held five years of hopes and memories that she just couldn't deal with any longer. She given it her best shot over the last five years, but there came a time where reality needed to be face and now she was being forced to face that reality. She was never getting home. No one was ever going to find her all of the way out here. She didn't doubt that many valiant attempts had been tried, but after all of this time, it was obviously that any attempt at searching for her had failed.

She just hoped that searching for her hadn't cost any lives. She wouldn't have wanted that to have happened and she didn't think that she was worth any loss of life. It was just how she felt.

She strapped her knife to her hip and the shorter of her two spears to her back. The largest spear she used as a staff, having the weapon right in her hands in case she suddenly needed it. Cutter watched all of these preparations and when Abby wrapped her cloak/blanket around her shoulders, he took that as a sign that it was time to leave the cave and follow her wherever she had decided to go. The Dire Wolf didn't always understand this creature's need to leave such a warm place when it was cold out, but he wouldn't let her go alone. She was _his_ and he would protect her no matter how much he didn't understand her actions.

Abby carefully made her way down the rocks and cliff face from the caves that had been her touchstone over and over again since she had been trapped in this place. She hadn't stayed there all of the time, but it was a good base of operations to keep returning to for the winter after long hunts.

It was winter now, but she wouldn't be coming back to that cave. She had to find another shelter that she would need to make into a permanent home for her and Cutter. A home where they would start over with logic and reality. There was nothing else to do. It was far past time for her to accept that this was going to be her home until she died.

She already looked like she was part of this world. She had forgot how to speak the actual words that were in her head because she had lost the habit of talking with the fact that she was here alone. She communicated with the signals and the sounds that the Austropaliths had taught her every time she stayed with them. She had learned to skin her hunts and use things to sew some kind of clothing the best way that she could. They wouldn't win any fashion awards, but they kept her warm for the most part and they kept her covered. Her covering were one of the things that the Austropaliths found amusing and interesting about her. They had natural fur and she had to create hers. She could see why they would be intrigued and amused by that.

Abby and Cutter walked all day. When night came, she found some trees for them to settle beneath for the night. It was cold, but she tightened her skin around her and Cutter curled up next to her on her other side. As long as the wind didn't pick up before morning, she would be all right and wouldn't fall ill again. She had gotten ill one time here before when she was alone and it was not the most comfortable thing to have to go through. She was determined to avoid that fate as much as she could.

The next morning when the sun first began to rise above the horizon, Abby continued walking again. They had put a great deal of distance from her caves, but she wanted to put even more space between them and her so that she didn't change her mind and go back to them. To go back to them would mean staying there near the site the anomaly had dropped her five years ago. To go back to them would mean that she was still holding out hope that someone was going to find her and she was going to get back home.

It wasn't going to happen and she wasn't going to continue to be stupid enough to to hold onto childish desires when she knew that the reality of her situation was far from hopeful.

On the third day of constant moving, Abby spotted some caves that could prove useful for what she wanted and needed in order to settle in for a long stay. The cave had an overhang that dipped further out from the opening of the cave -- giving both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain if she wanted to sit outside of the cave. Inside the cave, there were different passages that could be used as different rooms. The bigger chamber at the back was what she would turn into her sleeping space. She could cook in one of the passages closer to the cave opening and use one of the passages for storage of food and water.

It would make a good home for as long as she was stuck living out here. It wasn't your typical house, but it was certainly a practical one for the situation she was in. It didn't take her long to get her possessions set up like she wanted and needed to have them. It wasn't like she had all that many possessions with her.

Once that was done she moved back to the sleeping space with some water and the mushrooms she had become addicted to. If she couldn't be with her loved ones in reality, she would let the risk of the mushrooms she ingested take her to them.

 

_… in the long run, I think that changing locations was probably a good thing for me. For so long I had stayed in that one area because it was close to where the anomaly had been. I wanted to have a shelter close by it so I would know when it opened and I could return home, but it never happened. I did my best. I stayed in the same area as much as I could for five years and the anomaly never returned. The rapid cycles of hope and despair each day finally got to be too much for me to handle. Better to just accept the reality of my situation and go on from there. Trying to go on is hard, though. For so long I held onto a shred of hope, but now even that is gone. Even the mushrooms can only help so much. For a little while, I’m with the people I love, but all too soon the hallucination wears off and I’m back here alone with my memories and the images in my mind that seem to be fading. It’s like my past and everything I once knew is nothing more than a wisp of smoke that is rising up into the air just out of reach as it dissipates in front of me._

_I’ve never really been the religious sort, but I think that this is what Hell must be – being alone and trapped far away from everyone and everything you’ve ever known and love. Hell is a place where you are forced to learn your strength of character and either fail or succeed at the tests that are continuously thrown your way as you try to hang on to your shreds of sanity and find hope where there is no longer room for it. It’s hoping to see the people you love one more time and having to deal with the reality that it’s never going to happen and that your life is now far out of your reach. Hell is being alone when you finally found love and a place among a family where you are accepted and feel that you belong – that you are loved and cherished no matter what you say or think or do. On the other hand, Heaven must be the place that you get to go after you go through Hell and get to say goodbye to the people you have loved and lost or who have affected you in some way. Heaven must be the place where you feel safe and secure and you know that all of the trials you have been through have brought you to that one place finally full of rest and love. It’s the place that you finally get to make amends with the people you didn’t get to fix things with before they died ahead of you. It’s the place where you finally have the right and the opportunity to say your thanks or tell them how much they affected or changed your life._

_So what does this mean for me? Did I die as soon as I went through that anomaly with the purpose and intent of killing Helen? Did I die then or did I die when I killed Helen? Did I consign myself to a realm of Hell as soon as I made the decision to follow Helen and kill her? It may not have mattered to whatever god there is – if there is – that me killing Helen would save so many other lives. It does make a kind of sense that taking her life cost me my life. A kind of checks and balances, I guess. After all, we know in Science that every action has an equal or opposite reaction. Killing Helen killed me and that’s what keeps everything in check. It sounds rather rational and fluid when you think about it. Maybe my death was the price required to save the future and prevent the world that Helen said mankind created. A price was needed to neutralize Helen and that price was my life. I can see that, now. I’ve been stuck in this forever world of silence and darkness because I wasn’t ready to admit and accept the price that had to be paid for what I had done._

_I thought at one time that I was stronger and a better person than Helen Cutter could ever be. I assumed that no matter what happened to me, I would handle it more rationally than we had seen Helen deal with things. But I know now that it’s just not true. Helen did this for over eight years and I barely managed to last five. I don’t know how she did it and I probably don’t want to know. After all, if this is akin to Hell, then doesn’t that mean that Helen’s sentence would have been longer than mine because of all of the people she’s murdered or caused to die? Or, did I end her sentence prematurely when I began mine? Did killing her somehow end her punishment in this hell? I’m not sure that I like that thought after everything that she had done to my friends and my family – not to mention innocent people we know nothing about. Or the Austrapolith family group that she murdered before I was able to get to her. Who knows who else she might have hurt or killed that weren’t connected to the ARC in some way? That’s not even taking into account the people that were killed in the future because of those predator things that she helped create. As far as I’m concerned, those deaths are on her head, as well._

_It doesn’t sit well with me that I may have saved her from her fate of a longer sentence in this kind of Hell by killing her. There wasn’t any choice, I know, and I would do it again. But if this was supposed to be her punishment like it has obviously become mine, then how was she able to come and go as she pleased? That’s the part I still don’t understand. Why was she allowed to escape her Hell over and over again after everything that she had done, but my crime – which was so much less than hers – sentenced me to a neverending residency of this place? I don’t understand and it doesn’t seem right. She’s killed a great many people and I have only killed her. I only killed her to save millions or billions more lives. Shouldn’t that be something that counts in my favor?_

_The sun has almost set and even with the adjustments my vision have made to the lack of light, it’s still almost too dark for me to keep writing. But I’m forgetting events and people more and more every day and that frightens me._

_I remember every aspect of Becker’s face, but the memory is not as solid as it once was. It becomes more and more ghost like every day. But isn’t that what Helen told me that day, that my memories would fade away? It’s happening and has been happening. I can remember that Nick had blue eyes and reddish hair, but I can’t recall his face. I know that Stephen was strong and vulnerable, but it’s hard to call up an image of his face. It’s happening with all of them: Danny, Connor, Sarah, Lester, Jenny … the outlines of their faces are in my mind, but the images are lacking clarity and detail._

_I think that losing those memories and those people is an even worse punishment than being trapped here._

_Our memories and our experiences make up who we are, they make us human. Without them, who are we?_

_Who am I?_

 

It was four months after she moved locations that things began changing. Abby was ill and she knew she was ill.

She wasn’t sure what was exactly wrong with her, only that her energy was starting to drain more easily each day and it was harder and harder for her to hunt sometimes. The hand that held her spear today was trembling as she walked and her pack seemed heavier than normal. That was worrisome. If she couldn’t hunt successfully or couldn’t find food of another kind, she would die.

While she was ready for all of this to be over, it wasn’t a slow death from illness that she wanted to have to endure. A quick death from a predator? Yes. Wasting away from her body deciding to break down? No. That was not what she was willing to allow happen.

The fact that she was ill and feverish would be the reason that she didn’t notice the tell tale shimmering shards that suddenly appeared a few feet to the side of her. Cutter noticed it right away and started growling, placing himself against Abby’s legs as if to protect her from whatever was attacking them.

His growls pulled her from her inner worries and she stared dumbfounded as the anomaly opened completely.

If it wasn’t for the way that Cutter was reacting, she would have thought she was hallucinating the appearance of an anomaly. But no, it wasn’t a hallucination – or else why would the wolf be trying to push her in the opposite direction of it?

She stepped toward it, Cutter snapping at her leg, trying to stop her from approaching the strange thing. Abby stopped, putting her hand on his head to attempt to calm him. The wolf trembled against her, but he didn’t try using his teeth to get her to move away again. She stared at the anomaly, all kinds of thoughts going through her head.

It was highly unlikely that this anomaly would take her anywhere close to home. It was in a different location from the one that brought her here and it was the first one that she had seen in over five years.

However.

However, it was the first anomaly she had seen in five years and it could take her out of her personal hell and put her somewhere that she could better adapt to or regain her sanity and her health again.

Of course, there was also the likelihood that it would deposit her somewhere much worse than this where no amount of adaptation could keep her alive for very long. Dinosaurs that she couldn’t out run or something.

There was also the chance that it might take her right to the Cretaceous, putting her back in the original era that she, Danny and Connor had all entered into when they started their chase after Helen. While the chances of the two of them still being alive in the Cretaceous were slim, there was still a chance. After all, she had stayed alive on her own in this place for a little more than five years. Danny and Connor had each other to look after and she knew what kind of determination the two of them had.

She looked from the anomaly back to Cutter.

The Dire Wolf would be out of place in the Cretaceous if that was where this anomaly was going to end up taking her. Then again, so would she. It would probably be easier for future scientists to explain away the bones of a wolf than of a human.

She had to take this chance. With the way she was functioning, she could die before another anomaly opened up in this place. Yes, she could die on the other side of this, but at least she did something. She took a deep breath, stroking the wolf’s head before she removed her hand and shifted her pack on her back. Clutching her spear, she took another breath and started walking towards the anomaly.

She wasn’t surprised when he easily caught up to her and walked at her side and she smiled.

For good or bad, they were getting out of here

When Becker, Connor and Danny got to the anomaly site, it had already fully opened. Becker’s men were already in position, their guns locked on the target while Connor got his equipment set up to lock it down.

“Sir, there’s something trying to come through.”

Becker tried to steady his breathing as he looked at Connor. “Lock it down, Connor.”

Connor nodded, his face grim as he started keying in the coordinates to lock the anomaly until it shut down on its own.

“Captain Becker!”

“Lock it down, Connor!”

“I’m trying! Something must have already started through –“

“Oh, hell,” Danny cursed when the large wolf came through with his hackles raised and his lips pulled back to show an impressive set of teeth.

Connor made a sort of strangled whimpering noise. “Nice puppy,” he murmured. “Now don’t eat anyone and we’ll get you back home where you belong.”

The wolf turned his head to look at Danny and he stepped towards him since he was closer. One of the soldiers brought up his EMD, aiming at the wolf. The wolf snapped his teeth warningly at Danny, before stopping and turning to look at the soldier who had stepped closer.

“Take the shot,” Becker ordered his man.

The wolf looked like he was going to leap at the soldier, and the soldier lifted his gun to fire.

What happened next was a blur. They all heard a deep-throated growl, then the high whine of the EMD, followed by a sharp cry and a thud as something hit the ground.

“Oh my god,” Connor breathed as he took in the scene in front of them.

The wolf hadn’t been hit by the EMD, but the person he was now standing over protectively had been. Connor couldn’t see the person’s face, but he would recognize that blond hair anywhere – even if it was much longer and a lot dirtier.

“Abby?” Becker’s voice was choked. “Abby?”

Danny didn’t even wait for her to be identified for sure before he was on the soldier that had shot her.

It took a few minutes to get the scene under control.

Connor pulled Danny off of the first soldier while another soldier was ordered to tranquilize the wolf.

“Don’t hurt him,” Becker snapped. “Abby was protecting him so that means she knows him and he’s important to her. Hurt him and you’re fired.”

All of the men turned to look at Becker in confusion.

“Sir?” One of them questioned.

“You heard me. The woman is Abby Maitland.”

The men gasped and one of them pushed his way through the rest of them. “Captain, are sure? Are you sure it’s really her?”

Becker looked at the soldier asking him and nodded. “I’m sure, but once we get the wolf sedated, we can make a secure identification.” He swallowed hard. “Abby has finally come home.”


End file.
